Climate change deniers are anti-science and anti-reason — and they terrify me

You know what I don’t believe in? Engineering. Shameless pseudo-science. You want to watch out for those so-called ‘engineers’. See that bridge that fell down in Cumbria the other day? Lordy, they’ll be cashing in on that. Up they’ll pop with their ‘stress points’ and ‘foundations’ and other such insider-ish, clubby mumbo-jumbo. As though any of it actually meant something. As though bridges hadn’t been falling down forever, for no particular reason at all.

And medicine? God, that’s even worse. I mean, sure, sometimes you get a fever and somebody gives you some pills and you get better, but is there really a link? I doubt it. Kick up a fuss, though, and they freeze you out. They’ll stifle you. They’ll call you a crank. Because unless you’re one of them — a ‘doctor’ with ‘training’ — they just don’t want to know. As though they didn’t have a vested interest in the status quo. It makes me sick.

I am, of course, being childish and contrary. Did you spot that? Actually I do believe in engineering and medicine, quite fervently. Just like I also (point alert) believe in man-made global warming. Why? Here’s why: it’s because I don’t know anything about it at all.

Sure, I could do something about this. I could pack in this journalism lark, go back to university, spend three years replacing my useless philosophy degree with something science-ish, then do a masters, and then do a PhD, probably in climatology. But I can’t be arsed. And when I can’t be arsed properly to understand something, I tend to defer to those who can. I trust engineers to build bridges and I trust doctors to cure diseases. Likewise climatologists on man-made global warming.