Do you deny climate change? It's time to grow up

Every now and again there’s a story about how our recycled plastic isn’t recycled at all. Instead it’s sent half way around the world (consider that carbon footprint) and dumped in landfill or incinerated. The smoke pollutes the air; the leftover sludge pollutes the water supply. People get sick. The local government tries to clamp down on these operations, but local officials get bribed or the factories change location.

Some weeks back, RTÉ ran a report about recycling plants in Malaysia, where exactly this kind of thing is happening.

Understandably, stories like this can put people off recycling altogether. Why bother, when it’s a scam?

It's understandable, but it's also wildly illogical. Just because some, or even many countries are not recycling properly doesn't mean all are not. It certainly doesn't undermine the need to recycle: it means we should be more certain about where this waste is sent and what happens to it. Perhaps we should recycle it ourselves, in Ireland.

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But when it comes to recycling or the wider climate change “debate”, logic – like polar ice caps – is in increasingly short supply.

There are those who still deny the whole thing. It’s been made up by hundreds of thousands of scientists around the world so they can get grants. A scientist will do anything for a grant. Or it’s a naturally occurring phenomenon that has nothing to do with human activity. The first proposes a worldwide conspiracy on a breathtaking level. The second is based on “science” (usually plucked from the internet), that the aforementioned hundreds of thousands of scientists – not to mention nearly every government in the world – says is incorrect. It’s a bit like your doctor telling you your cholesterol is sky high, but you continue to smoke and wolf back the cheese because believeanynonsense.com says heart attacks don’t exist.

Frothingly spurious

These views are on the fringes of the argument, but at least they have the merit of attempting to challenge the reality of climate change head on. It’s in the more “mainstream” media that the attacks have become frothingly spurious.

If you find Greta Thunberg annoying, that's your opinion. But that doesn't make Antarctica cool down

Last month a record temperature of more than 20 degree Celsius was recorded in Antarctica. Even in summer, the temperature should remain around freezing, yet a piece of ice the size of Malta just broke off. These are facts. But all too often, it's not the facts that are disputed, but the people relaying them.

In the pages of this newspaper, Jennifer O'Connell has previously written about the spumes of hatred aimed at Greta Thunberg. If you find her annoying, that's your opinion. But that doesn't make Antarctica cool down. You find environmentalists pompous. Fine. But that won't make Antarctica cool down. You don't want to pay a carbon tax. You consider climate change an "issue of the left" because some of these hippies want to reshape capitalism. It's mostly young people anyway, who haven't a clue how the world works. Some of the predictions by climatologists haven't been exactly right.

Fine. But none of that makes Antarctica cool down.

Ignore it

Going back to our doctor again: this cohort of climate objectors have been told that their cholesterol is through the roof and they’ve chosen to ignore it. Not because they dispute the science, but because they don’t like the doctor.

It’s that childish.

Here is a generation of supposed adults who want to waste time by bickering over the finer details of climate change not because they care about them, but because they don’t want to change. Denying the problem spares them from having to face it: either from selfishness or cowardice or both. It’s difficult to think of any historical precedent where a generation was so destructively, wilfully ignorant.

Yet both the poles are warming up. The sea levels are rising, and this will have a catastrophic effect on our planet and the people who live here. Here’s one thing we could do to help: grow up.