Two Truths, One Lie

Welcome to The Strawman, where we take the latest climate news, throw in some memes, and deliver it hot and fresh to your inbox every day! We’re like your favourite bakery, but better.

Over the last week we’ve covered the IPCC’s climate change report a couple of times and one thing that has stood out is the overwhelming consensus that climate scientists have on the causes, impact, and potential responses to climate change. 97%+ of climate scientists agree that human-caused climate change is happening and 99% of peer-reviewed scientific papers agree with this.

So we were shocked when we found out that only 55% of Americans believe that global climate change is driven by human activity. See, here at The Strawman we care about the truth. And we took that personally.

Why is there such a big disconnect between climate science and public opinion?

Like my English teacher when I was 11 said, there’s always 3 reasons - in this case, they are:

• Climate disinformation

• Complexity

• Politicisation

That’s a lot of big words, but bear with us - The Strawman’s here to make it clear.

Climate Disinformation

‘Climate disinformation and misinformation refers to deceptive or misleading content that undermines the existence of impacts of climate change’

More than fifty years ago, major fossil fuel companies considered the impacts of climate change on their plans. While they could have chosen to act fast and adjust their strategies, they decided to strategically downplay the impact and distort the evidence.

Since then, lobbyists have harassed scientists, faked studies and have initiated corporate greenwashing campaigns that we’ve covered before.

Today, a combination of public, shareholder, and regulator pressure has forced many of these companies to shift their tone and begin to invest in renewable alternatives. However, a lot of the damage on the narrative has already been done. A significant portion of the public still believe that scientists don’t agree on the basics and that natural causes are more important than human drivers.

Complexity

While the basics are pretty simple and widely agreed upon, the details are not. Most of the science of climate change has really been solidified in the last twenty years. More on the climate change deniers main strategies in a later newsletter, but the main thing here is, despite the complexity of the problem, the outcome is relatively simple. The planet’s getting warmer - pointing at non-human causes and the complexity of the issue won’t cool it down. While a healthy dose of scepticism is important, now, it’s starting to get a little unhealthy…

Politicisation

Climate change and its causes have become a highly politicised topic. For many in the political arena, your perspective on climate change says more than any other belief you might have. In this case, for example, almost 80% of Democrats agreed with the idea that climate change is driven by human behaviour but only 24.5% of Republicans did. Something doesn’t add up here.

With all this confusion, it feels like it’s up to us to set the record straight. It ain’t easy being the Strawman, but it’s a burden we bear. That being said, you know what makes it easier to bear a burden? New friends. Do us a favour and send this newsletter to someone who’ll find it interesting - we’ll love you forever for it.

Until next time,

The Strawman