To think there's a link between climate change denial and Leave voters?

[KennDodd]

Listening to Nigel Farage 'climate scepticism ' on the radio last night and all his fans agreeing with him. I think Nigel Farage has also said the doctors are wrong about smoking. Baffling why anyone would take his view seriously. Anyway, every climate change denier I've heard of is also a Leaver. AIBU to think they're connected?

YANBU, there definitely seems to be a strong overlap in my experience

Source:
towardsdatascience.com/climate-change-and-its-weird-connection-to-brexit-8247a243d815

The thing about climate change is that it’s impossible to say that it’s happening until it’s actually happened (obviously it’s too early for that). It’s also difficult to pin point a cause. Many factors can come into it. A lot of people think it’s likely, and that we should cut down on dirty energy (for reasons including potential man made climate change) but they won’t say that man made climate change is definitely happening because they can’t possibly know it’s true. Which is of course the most reasonable opinion you could possibly hold on the matter.

But then you have people who jump to a false premise. They say it’s impossible to be sure that we are experiencing man made climate change. True. And anyone who asserts that we are is lying. Also true. Therefore, we definitely aren’t, man made climate change is not real. False.

With smoking on the other hand, there is a casual link between smoking and various health problems in smokers. There is enough data to affirm the theory in a way that there isn’t with climate change (yet). Obviously this only applies to first hand smoking. Second and third hand smoking is also lack in the data to find a causal link.

OhWhatACarveUp

Fascinating.

I've definitely seen these correlations in the people I know, but obviously that's only anecdotal.

I really hope some of the PPs on this thread get to have a look at the statistical evidence.

There seem to be a lot of posters on Mumsnet moaning about the Extinction Rebellion protests because of the minor inconvenience it might cause to some people’s day.

There are also a lot of Mumsnetters who claim to be concerned about the environment but still take regular long haul flights “because it’s my right to see my family who have emigrated to Australia”.

The vast majority of Mumsnetters are also Remainers. Go figure.

“The vast majority of Mumsnetters are also Remainers”

Do we know that- or is it just an impression?

Do we know that- or is it just an impression?

Just an impression.

For the supposed demographics of Mumsnet, I'm surprised that there are so many leavers. This is certainly not a remain-dominated site.

This is certainly not a remain-dominated site.

Disagree. If you go on the Brexit board I’d say it’s at least 85% remain, if not higher. On the other boards the percentage might be slightly lower but it still feels heavily remain dominated to me. Any leavers who post tend to get absolutely flamed and they do seem to be in a minority.

No, but there has been a concerted effort to promote this image of Leave voters as stupid and selfish.

I am a rare beast - I voted Remain but respected the outcome of the vote and am utterly appalled by the way it has been handled:

The way Leave voters are discredited and described as Far Right, racist, didn't know what they were voting for.

The way the goal posts moved from an election that made it very clear that a vote to leave was a vote to leave the customs union, single market and jurisdiction of the European Courts fo Justice to the fabricated idea of Soft verses Hard Brexit, with only Hard Brexit involving those things and Leave voters being told that is not what they voted for.

I am far more worried about the implications all this has for our democracy than whether we are members of the EU or not. I wold love to be in a union that commanded majority support across the whole of Europe, but I don't think the EU is capable of changing to become like that and I think there are strong indications that a referendum in many other EU countries, including France, would result in a Leave majority. It is a very sad state of affairs when an idea as good as the EU turns into something so unpopular and those who have their doubt are treated with distain rather than listened to.

It might appear the are more Remainers on Mumsnet because they appear to be more vocal. Maybe there are an equal number of Leavers but to most of them it might not be worth the argument. It’s impossible to say really.

I would actually love to see a chart showing the Mumsnet demographic. I suspect that the fact most people think there is a majority of people who don’t share their political views suggests that it is pretty balanced!

If I had to guess, I would suggest that there is a slight leaning towards the centre right with higher than average earnings. So probably by extension a slight leaning towards Remain?

Genevieva

Totally agree, what a measured and insightful comment. Vanishingly rare around these parts! 😉

they won’t say that man made climate change is definitely happening because they can’t possibly know it’s true. Which is of course the most reasonable opinion you could possibly hold on the matter.

Except it isn't. What we don't know are what the effects of man made climate change will be but you only have to look at the scale of change humankind has inflicted on the earth to know for a absolute fact it's going to cause an impact on climate.
If we take the advent of agriculture as our starting point for humankind seriously changing the world around them (that's around 10,000 years ago) then we've been doing it for 0.0000022% of the Earths existence.
In that time we've urbanized around 2-3% of the land mass (and currently use around 37% of it for agriculture), removed over 50% of all forests and released stored carbon into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate. (It took something like 170million years for atmospheric co2 levels to go from our current level of around 410ppm to 2000ppm during the permian/triassic eras. At our current rates will reach the same level in around 500 years). All that in 0.0000022% of time.
You simply can't inflict that amount of change in that short a period and not have some serious impacts on your environment.

Yes, I agree that some of the rhetoric around Leavers is pretty unpleasant. The problem is that so is much of the publicity used by prominent leavers and leave supporting parties. I don’t think anyone could deny that, surely?

The thing about climate change is that it’s impossible to say that it’s happening until it’s actually happened

I know nothing about climate and environmental science apart from a casual interest. The vast majority of climate scientists say man made climate change is happening, I'll just go with what they say. Can you imagine someone like me (I work in H&S) having a discussion with a climate scientist and thinking I know better than them! Same with Brexit, 90% of economists say Brexit will be bad for the economy, I'll just go with what they say, I don't know better than them. Even Economists for Brexit seem to be distancing themselves from Brexit, I see they've changed their name to Economists for Free Trade.

I've heard there is some psychology behind people thinking they are well placed to make decisions on complex subjects they know little about. Apparently non experts think they know more than they actually do know when tested about any given subject. They also think that experts know less than they actually do. That subject could be anything, ancient history, economics, even climate science. Conversely experts in any given subject rate the amount of knowledge they have on the subject as lower than they actually have when tested. They also think the public are better informed and more knowledgeable than they actually are. So, we have a situation where experts are cautious of their knowledge and the public are over confident. This might explain the mess we're in (climate and Brexit). I'll try to find a link.

Yeah, some of the leavers I know are also vehement climate change deniers.

Farage and Nigel Lawson have always been against 'the environment'.

Virtually all environmental groups, parties, scientists and academics who care about the environment wanted remain.

This is not news to anyone is it?

Yes - the sort of people who don’t want to listen to reason or “experts” tend to be both. Generally an attitude of “I know best” despite any knowledge of the matter.

I don’t know of any experts in economics or EU law who recommend leaving the Eu. Same with climate scientists- pretty much none are sceptics. That should tell you something.

Yes - the sort of people who don’t want to listen to reason or “experts” tend to be both. Generally an attitude of “I know best”

Funnily enough, this seems to be a more common attribute among remainers on MN!

I don’t know of any experts in economics or EU law who recommend leaving the Eu.

I certainly do! Including someone on the Foreign Office selection board who spent a couple of decades working in Brussels

In my opinion, there is a parallel between Brexit and Climate Change. I'm going to caveat everything with "in my opinion".)

They are two issues that are not about the things they purport to be about.

Brexit isn't, for the most part about concerns with the European Union. If you look at the polls, very few people thought the EU was an important issue until quite recently. It has erupted to become a proxy issue for something, led by the right wing press. I'm not sure what that thing is, but it seems to be partly a conflation of concerns about immigration, Britain's place in the world and a misplaced nostalgia when life was a bit simpler.

Climate change denial is not about science. It's about the perceived solutions. It's about the belief that the economy might have to change (taxes might have to go up, or we might have to change the cars we drive). As a result climate deniers start with the assumption that because they don't want taxes to go up, the science must therefore be wrong.

OhWhatACarveUp

Yes, I think you make a good point, especially about climate change.

Well said, what a carve up.

Here's an article about some of the prominent climate change deniers in the brexit party.

www.desmog.co.uk/2019/05/01/brexit-party-climate-science-deniers

I'm really intrigued by the people on the first page here, strongly denying there is a link and seeming quite...shocked by the suggestion.
Did you genuinely not know there is a link?

If I were to pin-point the connection, climate change and Brexit seem linked by a fear of the future and a desire to run away from it.

My thinking on the EU is that the World is becoming more complex. There is a greater need to work internationally on problems such as the environment, trade, defence, security, and this is what the EU does. To paraphrase Voltaire, if the EU didn't exist, then it would be necessary to invent it (perhaps in a different form, but we need to cooperate). Again, all of that is scary. Running away from that reality is not the solution.

Action on climate change will require changes to our transport systems, how we generate power, where our food comes from. And all those changes are scary. Running away from it is not the solution

Of course, climate change activists are also scared of the future, but the difference seems to be a willingness to engage with it.

Virtually all environmental groups, parties, scientists and academics who care about the environment wanted remain.

Weirdly, I know quite a few hardcore environmentalists (the kind whose idea of living sustainably actually means living as though it is 1732, albeit with a compost toilet, a bicycle and a biomass fuel stack), and all of them voted Brexit.

Their public argument was that they don't want EU wide rules on the environment (that would apply to the UK) to have to compromise with the needs of German industry or Eastern European economic development, which is a fair point, but I largely suspect, privately, it is more because they see consumerism, global trade, freedom of capital and free movement of people, all facilitated by EU principles, as being anathema to their cause of sustainability.

And I also have to say ... err ... they kinda have another point there too.

I think any perceived correlation between Brexiteers and climate change deniers is more to do with people who automatically do not accept an establishment line because they essentially distrust most forms of authority: be it hegemonic or alternative.

I dare say if the establishment denied climate change, most Brexiteers would become climate change obsessives.

The question really is why these people distrust authority so much, and why the number of these people is growing year on year. I suspect it speaks to interesting social and cultural dynamics that, unless addressed, are already starting to blow up in our faces.