In 1956, a team of American psychologists published When Prophecy Fails, on the response by a group of UFO cultists to the non-appearance of a promised flying saucer. The researchers chronicled how the failure of predictions did not lead to the cult's collapse. On the contrary, after a brief period of confusion, the members readjusted their beliefs and became even more fervent in proselytising their faith. The book comes to mind these days as the environmental crisis increasingly confounds the assertions of sceptics.
Today, CO2 levers have reached 414 parts per million, a level not experienced on earth for millenia. The world's five hottest years have all occurred since 2014 — and 2019 looks set to continue the trend. Climate models have become sufficiently robust that the researcher James Annan has developed a tidy little sideline taking bets against those who tell him warming isn't real. Unprecedented fires rage across the Amazon, in Africa and the Arctic. In Australia, we have such fires, too — but we also have reef bleaching, mass extinctions and prolonged drought.
Yet Liberal frontbencher David Littleproud just explained that he 'didn't know' if humanity was responsible for climate change. With major rivers like the Murray Darling in a state of utter collapse, you might expect a Minister for Water Resources to have done some investigation into the key issue for his portfolio, especially given he's also supposed to manage the bushfires that might bear some relationship to a warming planet. But apparently not.
What was more, in his refusal to link intensifying fires with climate change, he was backed by Bridget McKenzie, the Nationals deputy leader, Matt Canavan, the minister for resources and northern Australia, and Sussan Ley, all of whom, according to the Guardian, 'denied knowledge of or downplayed the link'.
The same phenomenon can be observed overseas. Trump, of course, calls climate change a Chinese plot, and appointed to his National Security Council the (now departing) physicist William Happer, who compared hostility to fossil fuels with 'the demonisation of the poor Jews under Hitler'. In the UK, the hapless Boris Johnson has assembled what some environmentalists have called the 'most anti-climate action' cabinet ever, while Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro promotes denialism even as the Amazon burns. Why aren't the denialists confounded?
In the Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud tells the story of a man who defends himself against accusations he had given back a borrowed kettle in a damaged state. Confronted by the aggrieved owner, the man sputters that, firstly, he had returned the kettle undamaged; secondly, it was already broken when he borrowed it; and thirdly, he had never borrowed it at all. 'A complicated defence,' Freud quips, 'but so much the better; if only one of these three lines of defence is recognised as valid must be acquitted.'
You'll find this 'kettle logic' in most of the denialist publications. In her new book, Naomi Klein writes of attending a conference of the Heartland Institute, in which the speakers regularly contradicted each other. She tries to puzzle out their arguments, asking sarcastically: 'Is there warming, or is there warming but it's not a problem? And if there's no warming, then what's all this talk about sunspots causing temperatures to rise?'
"Young people put no faith in flying saucers coming down to save the day. They recognise there's only one Earth — and they're determined to defend it."
Though the ideologues of denialism invariably declare themselves truthseekers wedded to facts and logic (so many invocations of Galileo!), the movement has always been more about politics than science. The fossil fuel companies that underwrite denialist thinktanks and conferences want to counter environmentalists and protect their profits. They don't care how they do so.
In an earlier period, in which the data wasn't as clear, the most effective technique involved a simple insistence that the temperature remained constant, that projections weren't accurate, that scientists fudged their results, and so on. But last July was the hottest month ever in human history. Under such circumstances, the old methods don't cut it and so the argument has changed.
The Littleproud position reflects that evolution. You'll note that the minister doesn't deny the rising temperature. Instead, he says we shouldn't be wasting time on airy-fairy scientific speculation about causes but must be 'making sure we give our people the tools to be able to go out and protect themselves in a changing climate'.
Expect to encounter this more often, in a number of slightly different guises. He could, for instance, have acknowledged human agency and still run more-or-less the same line. Climate change might be real, he might have said, and it might be caused by humans, but it's here now, and so rather than wringing our hands about carbon, we should just get down to the practical business of adjusting.
Barnaby Joyce used precisely that approach to denounce Richard Di Natale for 'politicising' the bushfires with talk of climate change. Rather than discussing energy, Joyce said, the Greens should be taking practical measures like enabling firefighters to take water from National Parks. That's not, strictly speaking, denialism, but it has the same political effect — it seeks to discomfort environmentalists and prevent any action to reduce emissions. Why, it's positively self-indulgent to worry about abstractions like carbon in the face of such an urgent threat!
Given the global emergency, why does any of this get a hearing? In respect of the die-hard audience for climate scepticism, that UFO cult provides a useful reference. The explanation in Why Prophecy Fails rests on the notion that the unsuccessful prediction caused a dissonance between belief and outcome, which many cultists sought to resolve in ways that maintained their beliefs. Having so publicly and seriously committed themselves to the UFO group, they found it easier to proclaim their faith with intensified fervour rather than to acknowledge any error, especially since new recruits helped them to believe they were right all along.
There's certainly something of this in the audience for climate denialism. Studies indicate that denialists find their core support among wealthy older white men, a demographic overwhelmingly represented at talks by Ian Plimer, Lord Monckton or other denialist stars. After long and successful careers, such people see attacks on fossil fuels as an assault on the business practices to which they devoted their lives. Their investment in the status quo leads to a public commitment to denialism (expressed through dinner party fulminations, the circulation of email chains, and subscriptions to the Australian).
Like the flying saucer people, they don't change their minds based on new material. Rather, the discomfort fresh edvidence causes them results in a renewed proclamation of their denialism, as they double down on their familiar identity. Where once they blamed environmentalists for not recognising the planet had been hotter during the Middle Ages, they now attack Greenies for preventing the adoption of carbon-free nuclear power. The rhetoric might change but the structure remains the same.
Yet it's important to recognise that the sceptics writing letters to Quadrant represent a small and declining minority. According to a recent report, 77 per cent of Australians believe climate change to be happening, and 81 per cent are concerned by the droughts and flooding they associate with it. A majority of Australians attribute extreme weather to climate change and two thirds want the government to stop opening new mines.
Furthermore, younger age groups show an overwhelming commitment to environmental action, as the remarkable school walkouts demonstrate. While the ranks of the denialists thin with every cold winter, the number of climate activists grows with each term's enrolment. There's no mystery there. Young people put no faith in flying saucers coming down to save the day. They recognise there's only one Earth — and they're determined to defend it.
Jeff Sparrow is a writer, editor and honorary fellow at Victoria University.
Main image: Vintage style 3-D rendering of flying saucer (oorka / Getty)