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PARIS: If the evidence is overwhelming that man-made climate change is already upon us and set to wreak planetary havoc, why do so many people refuse to believe it?
The U.N.'s panel of climate scientists, in a landmark report, described the proof of global warming as "unequivocal." That was two years ago, and since then hundreds of other studies have pointed to an ever-bleaker future, with a potential loss of life numbering in the tens of millions, if not more.
Yet survey after survey from around world reveals deep-seated doubt among the public. A poll published in Britain on November 14, to cite but one example, found that only 41 percent of respondents accepted as an established fact that human activity was largely responsible for current global warming.
"Green propaganda"
The majority said the link was not proven, that green propaganda was to blame or the world was not heating up at all.
Last week, a private exchange of emails among climate scientists stoked a firestorm of skepticism after it was hacked and posted on the Web. The memos expressed frustration at the scientists' inability to explain what they described as a temporary slowdown in warming, and discussed ways to counter the campaigns of climate naysayers.
Experts see several explanations for the eagerness with which so many dismiss climate change as overblown or a hoax. "There is the individual reluctance to give up our comfortable lifestyles -- to travel less, consume less," said Anthony Grayling, a philosophy professor at the University of London.
Emerging economies
While deeply anchored in the West, this resistance also extends to emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil where a burgeoning middle class is only today tasting the fruits of a lifestyle they have waited so long and worked so hard to obtain.
For Tim Kasser, a professor of psychology at Knox University in Galesburg, Illinois, the reality of climate change impinges on core aspects of our identity. "We are told a thousand times a day, notably through advertising, that the way to a happy, successful and meaningful life is through consumption," he said.
"But now scientists and environmentalists come along and say part of the problem is that we are consuming too much or in the wrong way."
