Denying the coming climate holocaust

There is a very interesting article posted at crikey.com.au that many of you may find interesting. It compares holocaust and climate change deniers and explains the differences between the two.

Here I have listed some of the key points from the article with a link to the complete article at the bottom of the post. It’s well worth the read.

Ronnie Wright
World Change Cafe

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Hamilton: Denying the coming climate holocaust

by Clive Hamilton

Climate sceptics resent being called deniers because of the odium associated with Holocaust revisionism.

[…]

If the climate deniers were to succeed, and stopped the world responding to the mountain of evidence for human-induced global warming, then hundreds of millions of mostly impoverished people around the world would die from the effects of climate change.

They will die from famine, flood and disease caused by our unwillingness to act. The Stern report provides some sobering estimates: an additional 30-200 million people at risk of hunger with warming of only 2-3°C; an additional 250-500 million at risk if temperatures rise above 3°C; some 70-80 million more Africans exposed to malaria; and an additional 1.5 billion exposed to dengue fever.

Instead of dishonouring the deaths of six million in the past, climate deniers risk the lives of hundreds of millions in the future. Holocaust deniers are not responsible for the Holocaust, but climate deniers, if they were to succeed, would share responsibility for the enormous suffering caused by global warming.

It is a ghastly calculus, yet it is worth making because the hundreds of millions of dead are not abstractions, mere chimera until they happen. We know with a high degree of certainty that if we do nothing they will die.

[…]

We think of climate deniers as being immoral because we suspect them of being motivated, not by truth-seeking, but by political goals, a desire for funds from fossil-fuel companies or personal aggrandisement.

[…]


To read the full article go here.