Columnist in denial on climate change causes

YOUR columnist Ryle Dwyer clearly subscribes to the Bart Simpson school of thought on climate change — ‘We didn’t do it. Nobody saw us do it. You can’t prove anything’.

In his column (Irish Examiner, March 31), he used, among other sources, an outdated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report from 1996. Back then, the consensus among serious scientists was not as strong as it is today.

The most recent scientific data indicates an extremely high probability that the causes of the extreme climate change we are witnessing are human in origin; there is, however, a possibility that other factors may also be at work.

The reaction of Ryle Dwyer and his ilk is, unfortunately, akin to that of someone being informed that his lung cancer is in all probability due to the 60 cigarettes he smokes every day and arguing in response that there surely must be other possible causes of the disease, and that the cancer cannot therefore be linked definitively to his smoking.

Because of these other remote possibilities, this individual rationalises that there is no need to give up smoking.

This is the classic case of denial which is identified by psychiatrists as the first of the ‘Five Stages of Receiving Catastrophic News’.

It is unfortunate Ryle Dwyer and other sceptics will have to negotiate the stages of anger, bargaining and depression before acceptance is finally achieved. I look forward to future columns.

Tom Butler

Courtbrack

Blarney

Co Cork