I Used to Be a Climate Change Denier

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/environment/i-used-be-climate-change-denier

I, a scientist with a PhD in microbiology and immunology, was a climate change denier. Wait, let me add, I was an effective climate change denier: I would throw on a cloak of anecdotal evidence, biased one-sided skepticism and declare myself a skeptic. Good scientists are skeptics, right? I sallied forth and denied every piece of evidence that was presented to me for a relatively long time.

It feels strange when I look back -- I inadvertently fell into almost every pitfall of pseudoscience, shutting my eyes and repeating a series of mantras, such as "I don't believe it!" "Why does it even matter?" and "I don't care!"

Thankfully, those days are over, but the memories linger. Although the evolution of my thought -- from ignorance, to denial, to skepticism and finally to acceptance -- was a continuum. In retrospect, I can distinguish certain phases that are worth listing and discussing. I hope my experience encourages others to loosen up some strongly held beliefs and listen to the din of evidence.

Here are the prominent phases of my climate change denial:

The 'We have bigger problems' phase

Being a biology and ecology geek in high school, my mind nurtured environmental concerns, especially in my birth country of Iran where air and environment pollution, uncontrolled hunting, deforestation and desert formation are rampant. When I first heard about climate change through media (nothing had been taught in school), I couldn't help but see it as a distraction from more immediate issues -- poverty, childhood mortality, wars and conflicts, pollution, and so on.

[Kalidurga]

1. poverty, childhood mortality, wars and conflicts, pollution, and so on....

Are all part of the same problem. It is a lack of compassion plus a killer amount of greed fueled by partisanship and a desire to remain a controling party. In other words conservatives are the problem.