Stuff Disgracefully Implies That Disagreement Equals Mental Illness

What Stuff is doing is classic gas lighting. Implying that people are mentally ill for disagreeing with them. Unpleasant narcissistic behaviour. They are a disgrace as a Newspaper.

SonovaMin

After reading SonovaMin and Phil View’s comments yesterday in General debate I just had to check out the offending Stuff article for myself. Just how bad was it?

I was amused to see Stuff’s choice of photo to depict us “Climate deniers.” Apparently questioning man-made climate change means that we are ignoring the scientific consensus. (You know, the one that doesn’t actually exist – but I digress).

People are more likely to deny climate change if they’re inclined toward hierarchy, have lower levels of education or are more religious. But the strongest predictor of denial is a person’s politics.

In this opening salvo, they are attacking a straw man. So-called “Climate deniers” do not deny that the climate changes. They believe that Climate change is a completely normal and natural phenomenon. What they question is mankind’s ability to influence or change it in any meaningful way.

So the premise of their argument is completely meaningless even before they insult us by claiming that we do as we are told (hierarchy), are stupid and believe in a sky fairy.

Why do people still think climate change isn’t real?

At its heart, climate change denial is a conflict between facts and values. People deny the climate crisis because, to them, it just feels wrong.

[…] It could be that the idea of climate change is a threat to our worldview. Or it could be that we fear society’s response to climate change, the disruption created by the transition to a low-emissions economy. Either way, climate change becomes such an “inconvenient truth” that, instead of living with and acting upon our worries, we suppress the truth instead. 

The writer is actually describing their own belief system not ours. Stuff has publicly stated that they refuse to publish any facts that do not match their world view and values. They believe that only facts that support their values/belief system should be allowed airtime. All other facts are to be suppressed because it feels wrong to publish facts that don’t fit their values. They are the ones with the closed mind and the religious fervour for pushing only one point of view.

The writer then goes on quite disgracefully to suggest that “Climate Deniers” are mentally ill as they are “negating reality.”

[…] In Western societies, political affiliation is the key factor, with conservative voters more likely to discount climate change. Globally, a person’s commitment to democratic values – or not in the case of deniers – is more significant. 

My goodness, the cognitive dissonance of this writer is huge! Which political affiliation believes in man-made climate change regardless of evidence to the contrary? That’s right, the belief in man-made climate change is left-wing doctrine. Conservatives are the ones that believe in freedom of speech for all and allowing all viewpoints to be heard and debated. Conservatives therefore, are the ones most committed to democratic values. They don’t want other viewpoints suppressed, they want them heard.

The article ends with the unproven claim that climate deniers are in the minority, as if that proves that they are wrong. The majority used to believe that the earth was flat but their believing that did not make it so. The natural climate change deniers should consider that for one minute – before they point the finger at those of us who see things differently to them.