Exchange with a Climate Change Believer

"I think we're done."

Some time in 2023, I had an altercation on Twitter with an Irishman on the topic of climate change. I think it is fairly interesting as an example of a failure between two men to communicate effectively. But I also suspect it was always going to fail, for reasons that will become clear.

It started when a finance guy made a tweet imploring people to do more to tackle climate change, especially because it’s going to drive many millions of refugees “from the Global South” into Europe. He warned of the dangers of “authoritarian populism” rising in response to this, etc. He seemed quite agitated and alarmist, as people talking about climate change usually do.

One of his friends replied, trying to get him to be more practical:

We can’t even get consensus that a climate problem exists in the West, nor can we get bad actors like China to reel in their greenhouse gases and CO2 levels, but it’s still up to us to fix?

I decided to engage this guy by pointing out that perhaps the reason we can’t achieve consensus on climate change is that the whole thing is a fraud:

Yes, it doesn’t make any sense. Maybe you’ve been misled?

At first, he was polite:

I’ve been misled?

This was him “giving me a chance”. Whatever I said now would set the tone for what he thought of me. I had to tread carefully.

I’d say so. It seems to me that climate change is a gigantic fraud, designed to pool wealth into ever fewer hands within the West - the huge corporations that can afford ESG etc. - while impoverishing ordinary people. Meantime, the rest of the world DGAF, but we suffer.

His reply was immediately defensive and dismissive:

No, I doubt I’ve been misled, and I don’t need random people on the Internet telling me that via nonsensical word salads. Climate change is not a fraud, the weight of evidence by people more specialised than me is very conclusive. But the lies about how we fix it aren’t helpful.

“I don’t need random people on the Internet telling me” - but he had just asked one of those people to tell him! But since he didn’t like what I said, he demoted me to some “random” person.

As for “nonsensical word salads”, this is absurd. My argument was perfectly coherent and actually contained three different levels of explanation:

> climate change is a gigantic fraud

> > to pool wealth into ever fewer hands, namely the huge corporations

> > > because only they can afford to adhere to ESG requirements

> > leaving ordinary people impoverished

> but this is silly, because the rest of the world doesn’t care and won’t similarly damage itself, so we are on a fool’s errand helping the rich to become richer for nothing

So, having asserted that climate change is a fraud, I explained how the fraud is conducted and the reasoning for it, and the inevitable result of it. Frankly I think I did extremely well with only 271 characters. You could disagree with any or all components of the argument, but to claim that the argument doesn’t make internal sense is clearly dishonest. The only question is whether he was being dishonest only with me, or also with himself.

His next sentence was a simple statement of loyalty to “the science”:

Climate change is not a fraud, the weight of evidence by people more specialised than me is very conclusive.

But his final sentence is interesting:

But the lies about how we fix it [climate change] aren’t helpful.

The expression “fix it” is a casual one. He was tweeting, and we should not exact rigorous standards in that medium. However, the idea of “fixing” climate change suggests to me that this man is not very well-read on the matter. At this eleventh hour, the narrative is no longer about “fixing” climate change. It is a done deal, it is happening, it is going to happen, etc. So, apparently, the best we can aim for is making sufficient preparations to deal with its effects, and possibly to slow it down. (It’s like covid in March 2020: “we can’t stop it now, but we can destroy our economy trying to mitigate it”.)

To his credit, the guy does refer to “lies” about what to do about climate change. This shows that he does have some curiosity. He is able to disagree with the powerful to some extent.

I decided to speak down to him, so as to convey that he wasn’t doing himself any favours:

Be open-minded and rational. What was “nonsensical” about what I said? Why can’t you understand it?

He replied:

Reread what you posted and put yourself in someone else’s position. I am very open minded, I also don’t need people telling me I’m not. But this issue has little to do with being open-minded at all; you either follow the science or you don’t.

Here we have the standard laid down in cold black and white: at this point, the science is settled, and you either follow it or you are not respectable, not a serious thinker, not worth speaking with. It has become dogma and there is no dispute, no time and no room left for debate.

I pressed him:

Forgive me, but you don’t seem open-minded when you dismiss a perfectly coherent statement as “nonsensical”. As for following the science, the science has been bought and paid for. That has been obvious for 20 years now. Researchers find what they are paid to find.

I was thinking here about reports in the late 2000s that temperature data was being, ahem, cooked. There have been other examples of climate data being distorted, but I needn’t go into them here.

He replied:

It has nothing to do with being open-minded, it’s about how you order your information and present it. “science has been bought and paid for”, ah, you’re one of those, okay.

So now he pins the responsibility on me for not ordering my “information” successfully, rather on himself for failing - or refusing - to understand the argument.

The use of the word “information” is notable. I had not presented any information, only arguments. The word “information” implies a scientistic mindset wherein everything is “data”. This is a pretension of the modern academic and those who aspire to that mindset and status. The pretension is that he only operates with data, and any abstract arguments presented to him are a case of “citation needed”. After all, we could never use our common sense, could we? That would be akin to superstition; certainly, it would not be deriving answers carefully from objectively-gathered empirical data!

Furthermore, responding to my assertion that climate change science is fraudulent and crooked, he dismisses me as “one of those”. Of course, this is a stock phrase, used smugly by academics when they conclude they are speaking to a moron, a tin foil hat wearer, a hater, a semi-educated fool, etc.

I now decided to return to his earlier comment regarding “the lies about how we fix [climate change]”:

Also, when the solutions proposed don’t make sense and wouldn’t solve the problem, doesn’t that give you suspicions about those who insist the problem exists and who would benefit from the “solutions”?

This is a key question for this particular guy. Having referred to “the lies about how to fix it”, he can’t deny that the question is well-grounded. Even if my suggested answer is incorrect, the question is legitimate. Furthermore, something shady must be going on if the most powerful and well-resourced bodies in the world have proven climate change, but then proceeded to offer fraudulent solutions to it. Why would they do that? Why would they offer fraudulent solutions to a real and crucial problem? And, since they are doing that, does this not cast into doubt their “proof” of the problem? Since that “proof” of the problem enables them to offer fraudulent solutions, does it not now seem a bit unreliable?

I should probably have left it there and let him respond, but instead for some reason I decided to post the infamous Time magazine cover from 1973 about “global cooling”:

His response was to play dumb:

And what am I supposed to infer from the front page of Time circa 1973?

So I had to tediously explain:

That activists and powerful bodies have been pushing the idea of environmental catastrophe for 50 years - global cooling, acid rain, ozone, global warming, and now climate change.

He could easily have replied to this, even with the default “climate change is complex so various effects of it have been noted”, but he didn’t bother. I was violating the consensus, so it would be a waste of his time to respond to me. An entire field of inquiry is ignored because it has been deemed “off limits” - the science being, of course, settled.

With no response from that, I returned to his earlier comment that I had presented a nonsensical argument, since it had wound me up. I replied:

The way I ordered the ideas and presented them was perfectly coherent. I put it to you that you chose to dismiss the argument as “nonsensical” because it is one you are either unfamiliar with, or have been primed to reject on sight as non-conformant.

This was the last straw for him.

I think we’re done. You’ve ticked enough boxes for the “You don't agree with me so you are brainwashed” category of Twitter bullshitter. I really hope you don’t think this strategy actually works.

“I think we’re done” is another stock phrase used by academics (and those who emulate them) when dealing with anyone outside of their circles with the temerity to reject the academic consensus. It effectively means: “Okay, I have kindly given you time to prove yourself to me, but you have failed my tests, revealing yourself as ‘not one of us’. I now know I don’t need to take you seriously and that I have, in my munificence, wasted my time by giving you a chance. I really should learn not to be so open-minded with you amateurs, interlopers and frauds.”

My immediate response was said out of annoyance, but also a tactical desire to be brief since he was clearly about to mute me, if he hadn’t already done so:

I don’t think you’re brainwashed. I just think you’re incurious.

This was a barb, admittedly, but I was also trying to escape the “brainwashed” accusation. Words like that are unhelpful, because they are clichéd and condescending. In truth, I think this guy is intelligent. Above a certain level people don’t get brainwashed as such; they do it to themselves. Able to analyse things rationally, they choose to persuade themselves of the consensus in order to retain social acceptance. So the lack is not of intellect, but of curiosity.

A few minutes later, once that had garnered no response from him, I continued:

Out of interest, what could I possibly have said, other than going along with the consensus, that wouldn’t have made you eventually dismiss me?

Again, no response. Presumably he had muted me already so wasn’t seeing these messages. But that last one was a genuine question and it got to the heart of the matter. Other than by going along with the consensus, there really was no way I was going to win his respect. If I questioned or doubted the consensus, that alone would prove to him that I was a fraud, a bullshitter, etc. For most academics today, being “worth my time” is the exact same thing as being “conformant”. Their social status is something they cling to, far more readily than any desire for truth.