Could you be with a partner who doesn't believe in climate change?

[ToDoLists]

DH doesn't really think it's all that bad. He thinks we should be recyling more and caring for the planet as makes sense and is just the right thing to do - but that climate change as a disaster is an exaggeration and not based in science. And that people are utilising it for their own agenda, woke brigade & so on.

We have young kids.

AIBU to find this position increasingly problematic?

People are going to say people are allowed different opinions but he seems geniunely unconcerned about future of planet for our kids - and I find that hard to swallow.

I might be OK as long as he didn't bring it up often. Or argue it. I'd be gutted if he went all Neil Oliver, avoiding facts and preaching verifiable untruths.

I put Climate Change Deniers on a par with Young Earth Creationists.

Sorry you are experiencing this in your relationship @ToDoLists, it can't be easy.

Unfortunately your dh is correct no matter what small thing we do to try and help the planet it's never going to get better.

It's a different question to the one asked by the OP, which was about climate change

I agree that localised pollution is a different question, and one that’s easily conflated (eg ULEZ is a policy principally targeted at local air quality rather than overall carbon dioxide emissions).

I also agree we need to consider carefully solutions put in place to limit carbon emissions and their wider impact on ecological systems, where the raw material need to come from etc.

However, there’s a further distinction in the OP’s question that you don’t pick up on - whether her DH believes in anthropomorphic climate change, not just climate change.

What predictions are wrong? I'm intrigued.
Two years ago the temp inc was 0.9oC, its now 1.3oC. 1.5oC is the physical limit at which the system linking the north and south pole is so stressed that it starts to fail and the risk of the gulf stream failing along with other climatic disasters are predicted.
They got wrong just how quickly the earth is heating, not that climate change isn't happening. Based on ice core data, the last ice age took just 20 years from what appears to be pretty normal years going back many years.

@ToDoLists you're DH is entitled to his opinion and if its putting a strain on your relationship, tell him. If he's going on about it and woke etc then I couldn't put up with it. But if you love him tell him to shut up rather than end the relationship.

There is so much information out there by experts in their own field giving an opinion one way or another… but is it a deal breaker for you if you both agree to disagree?

I would find it a bit problematic if you care so much about this " disaster " that you're willing to ruin your household and family's happiness over this so called impending doom.
What a way to live :(
Miserably in agreement? I do not think your husband is terrible for being a skeptic.

I do think it’s possible to recognise that climate change is happening but to also have doubts that human activity has caused it. I’m not sure that we can do anything about it.

I used to believe in man made climate change. I used to believe in a lot of things. But then I noticed that the 'experts' get everything wrong every time. And I realised that cannot be a coincidence. Your DH sounds absolutely gorgeous to me. And a very wise man. You should go and look up some 'alternative' opinions and read up on them and you'll find your DH is right. Congratulations on being married to such a winner who isn't in the unbearable superstitious cult of The End Is Nigh.

The experts get everything wrong all the time?

Bloody hell, Dunning Kruger in action. Her "D" H sounds like an errant fool and so do you

You've missed the point. Wildfires cna be caused by humans yes, but they are made more deadly and hard to extinguish because the land is so hot and dry, which is due to climate change. Also climate change is responsible for more lightning storms and hot lightning which are also major contributors to the ignition of wildfires.

I’m totally with your partner on the whole climate change hoax. Yes we should care for the environment by not being wasteful and tidying up after ourselves but the trash that is getting peddled in MSM is all about inciting fear in people. Unnecessary fear! We can’t ‘save’ the planet and no government with its flashy warnings can either. Get real. These so called climate emergencies are being engineered by them. Start looking at what the WEF and WHO have planned for us all and you’ll realise who the real thugs are.

Yes, I agree. I know climate change is real, and that human activity is majorly boosting any natural warming cycles while offsetting any natural cooling cycles. I know we were headed for disaster- we’d be there already if we had not taken swift action on the ozone layer. So we’ve already avoided one extinction event caused by our impact on the atmosphere.

I don’t agree with the doomism. It’s not too late to avoid future disasters. CO2 isn’t the only greenhouse gas despite our fixation on it. Methane and N2O are emitted in smaller amounts but are hundreds of times more powerful at causing global warming…we’ve been also reducing those emissions too.

In addition, we have reforested large part of the temperate zone rewinding vast carbon sinks.

The U.K. has been in the forefront of this, and the issue now is getting alot of the other rich polluters on board to take similar action. We did the heavy lifting developing the technologies like wind turbines, solar panels, tide turbines, and biofuels…we’ve shared that with the world and for the poorer countries given them cash money to spend implementing it. We aren’t a rich country anymore, it’s time for the rich countries to do their bit.

So are you saying he doesn’t believe in climate change (the facts are actually there - the planet is getting hotter), or that he doesn’t believe humans are causing this to happen through burning fossil fuels which are churning out greenhouse gasses?
I have an elderly uncle who agrees the planet is warming, but thinks we are still coming out of an ice age and that the planet is warming anyway - which might well be true but people pick and choose facts that they are fond of - he’s a geologist so does know about the history of the planet. It’s frustrating and he is clearly not stupid. He has recently agreed that we are accelerating this global warming as it is happening rather quickly. He is also an unbearable bigot, has shares in Shell Oil and very difficult to have around with constant moaning about “the woke” so that’s why he sticks by his theory. If he can agree that we are causing a crisis (ie acceleration in warming - according to him), then there is hope for your DH.
Find some respected scientific articles and suggest he reads them.

They should but unfortunately there is plenty of false information out there that people write and industry uses to portray that climate change isn't that bad. I came across one the other day that appeared to suggest that British farms are almost carbon neutral and when you looked into the research study it quoted, the study related to a handful of New Zealand farms with lots of woodland, and it was written by a consultant of BMPA.. the British Meat Processing Association. Also many people can't be bothered to read whole science articles and go for headlines instead. Then they use their bad info to influence others not to make necessary changes for our survival. So do you think Holocaust denial should be legal?

Lots of journalists are guilty of not reading scientific papers thoroughly and misreporting results or reporting them in a deliberately sensationalist and misleading manner (ie the headlines you mention are due to the click bait profit incentive).

I recall reading a copy of a letter from the head of the Maldives or nearby islands claiming that rising tides would imminently swamp the islands and make them uninhabitable. It was dated mid nineteenth century.

I wouldn't even personally call it an opinion - he's definitely wrong and people can dispute it all they like - it's happening anyway. That being said, I don't think that I could personally leave someone over it if I loved them. I would definitely not just let any climate-sceptic comments slide but as long as it's not a constant argument every 5 minutes - I can't see it being a deal breaker.

Exactly.. a country whose very existence is threatened by climate change

A lot of people bury their heads in the sand - the classic argument is:

"Climate change isn't happening"
"Ok, climate change isn't happening but it isn't human driven"
"Ok climate change is happening, it is human driven but there isn't anything we can do about it."

That is the milder side of it - the relatively sane argument. Then you have all the conspiracy shite, which is another rabbit hole altogether.

Doesn’t matter what he ‘believes’ because climate change is happening regardless. The wrong people didn’t believe - or didn’t care - until it was too late. Maybe he’s got a point not worrying about something that’s grimly inevitable but I’m very sorry you doing yourself married to the sort of drip who uses expressions like ‘woke brigade.’

Found not doing!

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Climate_change

Great website for addressing all the climate scepticism.

The front pages of the newspapers today are terrifying. It's definitely making me very anxious about the future.

Climate change is a con the planet has being getting warmer and colder since its inception but not at the rate the politicians and climate change believers want us to think it is.
Just look at weather maps as little as 10 years apart and the weather reporters are saying that country's that normally have a temperature of around the mid 30's in summer are now having record high temperatures when someone in that country says the weather is no higher than any other year, mid 30's, when the BBC claims they are having record temperatures in the mid to late 40's.
The BBC now put places with normal weather, mid 30's in red when 10 years ago the same temperature on the map was green.
Climate change is a con made up by someone who had nothing better to do on a hot day.