Posted on 07/24/2022 5:18:57 PM PDT by Ennis85
What can you do when the people closest to you believe climate change is a hoax?
It was during school pick-up a few years ago that Lance Lawson first asked his father about his views on global warming.
"He basically told me something along the lines of 'It's nonsense'," Lance recalls.
His dad spoke of unscrupulous politicians "fearmongering" for electoral gain. Climate change, he told Lance, was completely "overblown".
Lance, now 21, lives with his father, Brian Anderson, in the US state of Florida. He was just a teenager when that conversation happened, but it made a huge impression on him.
"My father is a very smart man," he says. "So I assumed that, if my father is telling me this, then it must be true."
But, as time went on, Lance started realising his father's views weren't backed by scientific evidence - and he decided to challenge him.
"Whenever he drove me to school, I would give my own argument, and he would downplay the evidence. It would force me to acquire new evidence, and that cycle helped expand my own understanding."
If someone close to you believes climate change is a hoax, you may find it hard to do what Lance did.
Maybe you fear confrontation, maybe you simply don't know how to explain the basic science of global warming.
But Gail Whiteman, professor of sustainability at the University of Exeter, says it's important to talk: "If we don't tackle climate denial and climate indifference, then the uphill battle to find a safer future is lost.
"We need to tackle our teachers, our neighbours... All of us have to become vessels for communication."
But how exactly do you go about starting the conversation?
Reciting the facts isn't always the answer
Sander van der Linden is professor of social psychology
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
It helps if you have a little “blow” for the denier before you start. A little toot for the snoot.
That’s the reply I was waiting for.
I’d tell the kid I’m not paying for your indoctrination anymore.
Give him 48 hours to move out.
Oh, wait he can’t afford it.
Boo hoo.
Entire generation living in parents’ homes, but has the gall to mock them.
It doesn’t help that for about the last 3 decades, you didn’t get a grant unless you proclaimed MAN MADE GLOBULL WARMING! So *of course* the “science” says what the political handlers want it to say.
In Eisenhower’s farewell speech, right after the passage where he warns of the military-industrial complex, he also warns of big science working at the behest of big government. Besides the whole climate change power grab with the interplay between science and political power and money, we’ve also seen this with Covid and the medical field and politicians.
Eisenhower was a very prescient man.
Climate change is a cult religion with an unquestionable dogma. The label “denier” is no different than heretic…one who does not accept the dogma. There is no science or debate only unquestionable belief in the dogma
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.