Irish Examiner View: Ignorance undermining fight against climate change

President Trump's dismissal of the science that defines global warming is an example of his and his supporters' wilful and dangerous ignorance.

Wed, 16 Sep, 2020 - 10:23

Anyone, or at least most of those who watched David Attenborough's Extinction: The Facts on Sunday evening may not have had the kind of night's sleep necessary to put a Monday-morning bounce in their step.

It did not inspire optimism, rather the opposite, especially for parents of young children. The programme was so darkly dystopian that the events he, and myriad academics, described almost requires a new kind of vocabulary even if only to capture the sense of helplessness many feel as this planet is ravaged.

There are many energies driving that destruction, all well-rehearsed. One of the most difficult to challenge is ignorance, wilful or otherwise.

That ignorance manifests itself in many ways. President Trump's dismissal of the science that defines global warming, during a visit to fire-ravaged California on Monday is another example of his and his supporters' wilful and dangerous ignorance.

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That ignorance cannot bear scrutiny yet it has a profoundly limiting influence on efforts to avert climate catastrophe. Social media are a primary source of that misinformation, a reality acknowledged by Facebook.

The tech giant “recognises the urgency of climate change”. It also recognised that hosting thousands of pages and groups that claim climate change is a hoax was "problematic".

Last year Facebook's revenue hit $70.7bn so it has the capacity to resolve these issues almost immediately if it wishes to do so. If it does not then not only will it facilitate the denial destroying our planet it will make even more necessary for governments to unite to belatedly confront these monsters.