Clive Hamilton has a riveting essay in a new book edited by psychoanalyst Sally Weintrobe, Engaging with Climate Change, which had its origin at an inter-disciplinary conference at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London a couple of years ago. Hamilton’s subject is what history can teach us about climate change denial. He begins with the deep polarisation of US society and the way in which global warming has become a battleground in this wider culture war. The implications of climate change threaten conservative cultural identity. Not that liberals are less likely to sift evidence through ideological filters, but in the case of global warming the evidence overwhelmingly endorses liberal beliefs that unrestrained capitalism threatens future well-being, that government intervention is needed and the environmentalists were right all along. In Europe, the absence of a long and rancorous culture war explains the relative weakness of climate change denial.
Continue reading “Clive Hamilton on Einstein, scientific dadaism and the roots of climate denial”
Being keen on accuracy in all things, I feel I should draw the attention of the readers of Hot Topic to a prediction failure. Back in August, in a post called 
In which Mr February (aka Simon Johnson) looks at the uselessness of the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, people begging on Lambton Quay in Wellington, and the fact that the spot price for a tonne of carbon dioxide is the same as for a flat white.