Podcast: Denialism—What Drives People To Reject The Truth

As a climate reporter, I'm regularly confronted by denialists. People who believe the world's scientific community is part of a global conspiracy reach out to me via email, Twitter or in the comment section of my pieces. Some are all-out denialists, while others maintain that humans have nothing to do with climate change. Others are just trolls.

I have learned that, if all the scientists in the world and much better writers than myself can't convince them, I'll be losing my time trying. But it undermines my morale to see how our species faces an existential threat and these people keep playing games.

Turns out I'm not alone:

Campaigners against anthropogenic global warming often lament that, as the task becomes ever more urgent, so denialism continues to run rampant (along with apathy and “softer” forms of denial). It appears that nothing works in the campaign to make humanity aware of the threat it faces.

This podcast looks at denialism as a psychological and social phenomenon. The content is well researched and crafted. It doesn't just use case studies, but goes into the academic considerations of denialism and the dark side of human nature it caters to.

But it also goes where others don't. It points to the growing weaknesses of denialism and suggests that its end is near, and that total war against truth is coming:

Post-denialism represents a freeing of the repressed desires that drive denialism. While it is still based on the denial of an established truth, its methods liberate a deeper kind of desire: to remake truth itself, to remake the world, to unleash the power to reorder reality itself and stamp one’s mark on the planet.

This is a dangerous situation, says the author, as the fall of denialism will make us face the terrible truths and dark desires it hides.