Climate Change

Climate Change Denial: A Tragedy in Three Acts

By Ryan McGreal
Published February 02, 2007

Environmentalists have long recognized the three stages through which polluters and their paid apologists seek to sabotage any coordinated attempt to reduce significantly the greenhouse gases we produce.

The three stages are:

  1. Climate change is not happening. The science is speculative and contradictory.
  2. Climate change is happening, but it's not caused by humans.
  3. Climate change is happening, and it's caused by humans, but it's too late to stop it.

An article in today's Toronto Star strongly suggests we've arrived at stage three.

Scientists from 113 countries issued a landmark report Friday saying they have little doubt global warming is caused by man, and predicting that hotter temperatures and rises in sea level will "continue for centuries" no matter how much humans control their pollution.

A top U.S. government scientist, Susan Solomon, said "there can be no question that the increase in greenhouse gases are dominated by human activities."

A summary of the report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is available here.

At this point, the best we can hope for is to limit the amount of damage, but even now, the obstructionists are still at work, jumping on the panel's claims that since 1970, climate change has "more likely than not" caused intensified hurricane activity.

Accusation and counter-accusation of political interference are flying, and the whole messy process mainly serves to obfuscate the underlying solidity of the evidence that humans are causing climate change and delay meaningful action.

Ryan McGreal, the editor of Raise the Hammer, lives in Hamilton with his family and works as a programmer, writer and consultant. Ryan volunteers with Hamilton Light Rail, a citizen group dedicated to bringing light rail transit to Hamilton. Ryan wrote a city affairs column in Hamilton Magazine, and several of his articles have been published in the Hamilton Spectator. His articles have also been published in The Walrus, HuffPost and Behind the Numbers. He maintains a personal website, has been known to share passing thoughts on Twitter and Facebook, and posts the occasional cat photo on Instagram.

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