Arguing about climate change for the wrong reasons

We argue about climate change is for reasons, it seems, we don’t truly understand.

Eric Knight's
book.

Conversations are frequently heated, ideological, divisive and being little more than words piled upon words, rarely result in anything that could be seen as a solution.

The idea that we need a “solution” is in itself divisive from some in the conversation see changes to the world’s climate as entirely natural and rather the seek answers, we should simply be adapting.

Author and former Rhodes Scholar, Eric Knight, has waded into the conversation through his June 2013 book: “Why We Argue About Climate Change”.

Knight, who has worked as a consultant for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); the UN and the World Bank and he has written for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Drum, The Spectator and The Monthly, writes:

“Even if the alarmists of over stating their case ………. these possibilities (the complications arising from our changing climate) are so dire that we are duty-bound to consider how they might be averted. The global warming that is occurring may not be all man-made, but it is still our problem.”

Knight, who sees himself as a technological optimist, but a political realist, argues that that it is freedom rather than science that is the real sticking point in the conversation.

“If I am correct, then in my view it is from the right rather than the left that the ability to build a genuine public consensus on climate change must eventually come,” he writes.

Knight brings sense and objectivity to this polarising conversation and for anyone concerned about the welfare of humanity (that would be of interest to everyone you would assume) and the way ahead, then “Why We Argue about Climate Change” is essential reading.