Climate change denial - its a belief thing

Research shows that knowing about climate change does not lead to action. 45 years of research costing around £100 billion has resulted in only about half the developed world admitting that we have anything whatsoever to do with climate change. The evidence is there for everyone to see, but people chose not to believe it. Even those that accept the evidence often do not act, such as climate scientists flying long-haul for holidays.

It seems that there is something more fundamental than knowledge at work here: belief.

Climate change and religion appear to have a lot in common. To those that do not ‘believe’, the idea of belief is extremely scary: to believe is to admit that how you live is wrong and needs changing, which means a radical alteration in lifestyle. It think it goes even deeper, as accepting that there is a God means accepting that all your core principles need to be reassessed in light of how He would want you to act. The same is true for climate change, albeit without the praying.

Now, the truth of both climate change and religion is slightly different from the perceptions of the unbeliever: not all religious people give all their possessions to the poor and go off to become missionaries. This is fairly easy to recognise logically, but the emotion of belief is a very powerful thing. Perhaps it is the danger of losing self respect that is most important, as to truly believe something without acting upon it whole heartedly is incompatible with the ‘I must be perfect’ culture that has arisen lately.

Some may accept the evidence of climate change and accept logically that it is occurring, but many still do not allow it to influence their core belief system and so can carry on life as usual. Others simply deny that it is happening at all and avoid the whole knowledge/belief imbroglio.

Hence Zeta – a way to be content with who you are and what the world has to offer, without fear of fashion and the consequences of following your convictions. After all, Zeta is all about following your convictions to get the best out of life - do that and the rest will fall into place, all the barriers and fears to living the best life you can will melt away; although admittedly it requires some bravery and strength of character to be Zeta.

But more about that later.