Climate Change Sceptics

You won’t find climate sceptics
Near the thinning ice
Or on low island atolls
Vanished in a trice

The dire real world picture
That should be plain to see
Is sadly out of focus
When filtered through TV

Comfortable and powerful
Men in caves of steel
Decree the truth illusion
And climate change not real

I am always interested when apparently educated and intelligent people deny the reality of climate change.  I listen carefully to what they say and usually discover that they are not particularly well informed.  They often believe what they have read in the newspaper, seen on TV or even read on blogs and with no real world context have accepted opinion as fact. But being well informed is not a prerequisite to having a strong opinion. When you work in a central city office with regulated heat and purchase your food from a supermarket it is unsurprising that your real world view will be blurred.

On the other side of the ledger are those on the front line. You won’t find climate change sceptics amongst the marine biologists and climate scientists who are daily confronted with the reality of massive changes in climate and ecology and particularly with respect to marine ecology which is changing rapidly. You also won’t find too many climate change sceptics among the Pacific islanders who are watching their atolls disappear beneath the waves or the Inuit in their rapidly warming Arctic homes.  It is ironic that the opinion of native peoples, who are such careful observers of the weather, is of such little worth in comparison with the opinion of highly articulate but often profoundly ignorant men of power in their caves of steel.