Way to go, Liberal Party! Who would have thought the collective intelligence of our conservative politicians could fall below that of an inbred earthworm? They have shown that paranoid ignorance trumps rat­ionality every time, on both ends of the political spectrum, as their obsession with climate change denial is like a mirror image of the left-wing delusion that the American government orchestrated the 911 attack.

Both ideas are fatally attractive, and both can be endlessly embroidered from the comfort of your armchair at home without any need for evidence. Clearly the godless environmentalists have found a way to reduce us all to communism by dismantling western industry, and clearly George W Bush surrounded himself with corporate fascists who would stop at nothing to enslave the people.
The difficulty with both ideas, and the reason people without straight-jackets tend to dismiss them, is the scale of the conspiracy. Dick Cheney’s evil plan would have required total complicity from hundreds of government agents, and just imagine how many climate scientists would have to be signed up by Al Gore to mutilate their life’s work promoting a theory they know to be untrue.
However, there is one big difference between the two fictions: the 9/11 story was never taken seriously outside the realm of loony internet speculation, but climate change denial has not only escaped from the asylum, in Australia it has actually taken over most of a mainstream political party.

Let’s get this straight: there is no serious debate in scientific circles about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. If like me you are not an environmental scientist, you must rely on what is printed in Science or Nature or any peer-reviewed journal specialising in atmospheric or climate science. If that’s too hard, at least read New Scientist rather than Andrew Bolt. In the places where scientists work and publish, the consensus is clear and hardening: if we don’t address the problem immediately there will be catastrophic consequences. In the right-wing media (which means most of it) there is a barrage of ‘scepticism’ that has risen to a crescendo in recent months and drowned out the informed view that action is imperative.

The origin of most of this opinion-bending is no mystery. The fossil fuel companies have spent millions on PR campaigns, dodgy websites and political lobbyists promoting junk science, just as the tobacco companies did when combating the link between cigarettes and cancer. (This is not another conspiracy theory: the money trails are clear.) The onset of the global financial crisis also helped their cause.

But it would not work without our human need to believe that climate change isn’t happening. Apparently the older we get the greater this need for denial becomes. A recent survey in America found that a majority of respondents did not believe global warming is caused by humans, and also showed that people over the age of 65 are much more likely to take this view. Young people cannot afford to be so cavalier: they will be around to see the results of inaction.

Most of the people denying the science, or arguing that there is still professional debate about the issue, are not equipped for serious discussion. They adopt what Richard Dawkins in another context called the ‘Argument from Personal Incredulity’. It goes something like, ‘As a retired school teacher I find it impossible to believe that human beings have the capacity to affect the climate, so change cannot be happening.’ And if it is, it must be down to sun spots, volcanoes, orbit wobble or whatever else takes the uninformed fancy.

Often these opinions are derived from religious conviction. Environmental values which contradict the paradigm of the universe being created solely for human use and profit incite powerful antagonism in those whose religion is of a legalistic cast.
This is part of what has driven the Liberal Party revolt. The leaders of the climate denial faction are mostly old men who claim various Christian allegiances. No doubt hatred of the abrasive Malcolm Turnbull was also a strong motivation, but getting rid of him will not be enough to rehabilitate a party with a medieval catholic attitude towards science. At least with an Abbott and Bishop in charge we know what we are in for.

In the meantime, there was a scheme before parliament, loaded with concessions to big polluters, of uncertain worth in reducing emissions, and arrived at by extensive negotiation. It’s the sort of crap bill you get when too many selfish interests compete like piranhas in a bucket, but it was a start. We could have built on it, for our children’s sake. Planet Earth to those Liberals who can still outwit earthworms, come in please.