The MAGA agenda of denialism

These days most instantiations of science denialism are part of the alt-right manifesto. For example, Holocaust deniers are almost exclusively politically conservative. The same is true of AIDS deniers, Covid vaccine deniers and, of course, climate science deniers.

This is because many of today’s conservatives are intellectually lazy and dishonest. Acquiring expertise in a given field is hard work and requires years of study and discipline. It’s so much easier for lazy and dishonest people to glibly write off any science that is politically inconvenient. After all, who’s going to stop them? And, of course, very often the denialism in question is politically or economically advantageous to conservative special interest groups, such as racists, Q-Anon paranoids and the fossil fuel industry.

Often as not, if you’re a conservative and you believe something is misguided or fundamentally wrong simply because you want to, many rewards and damned few penalties await. Besides, it’s infinitely more satisfying than admitting you may be wrong about something. For some people that’s tantamount to confessing that they’re not as bright as they pretend to be.

Climate science denialism is a case in point. These days 100% of climate scientists are rightly convinced by overwhelming evidence that global warming is man-made and a clear and present danger to life on earth. Denialists write them all off in a stroke. More often than not they did “their own research” by watching a YouTube video or listening to some effete crackpot on Fox News. It may seem bold to contradict every climate scientist alive based on the word of an idiot on Fox News or a badly-produced YouTube video you once watched, but I can assure you it is not. It’s merely stupid.

Stupidity is easy to come by when money is involved. The fossil fuel industry devotes hundreds of millions of dollars every year to promoting lies about global warming and downplaying their causal role in it. People who don’t like to think fall for their lies easily. Besides, no one wants to accept that the planet is in serious trouble. It takes a certain amount of courage to face the truth. But if we don’t face the truth, nothIng will ever be done about it.

It’s part of the MAGA agenda to contradict every climate scientist on earth and promote the false notion that climate change is a hoax. You might think that convincing people that hundreds of thousands of climate scientists somehow got together and decided to commit history’s most egregious lie for some nebulous reward is impossible, but you would be wrong. It’s easy.

I have never once in my entire life met a conspiracy theorist cultist who has ever spent five seconds wondering how hundreds of thousands of people could keep a secret. This despite everyone’s personal experience that two people can’t keep a secret. For some reason, conspiracy theories are exempt from common sense.

So what can you do? You can make climate change a topic everywhere you go. Bring it up at work and in social gatherings. Vote for candidates who take climate change seriously. Do all you can to reduce your own carbon footprint. Above all, educate yourselves on the latest climate change data, and make disaster preparedness part of your life.

If enough of us join together in keeping climate change in the forefront of our thoughts and activism we will have a tremendous impact on the rest of the world. Social change happens when huge groups of people get together and unite under a single cause.

If you doubt this, look at MAGA. Conservative politicians are terrified of MAGA. If people can unite under a banner of stupidity, we can unite under a banner of sanity. The best way to fight a popular movement is with another, larger, popular movement. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope you will join us. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.