Supporting Science in an Age of Denial

As the world grapples with the ongoing devastation of climate change coupled with a global pandemic, it’s more important than ever that we turn to science for answers and solutions. Unfortunately, political agendas are clouding objective scientific data, making it increasingly difficult to protect our most vulnerable populations and preserve the planet for our youth.

In the United States, this problem runs all the way up to our highest office. During a September meeting with California officials to discuss the recent scourge of wildfires — one of many spikes in natural disasters that scientists have definitively linked to climate change — the president disregarded the scientific data presented to him.

“I don’t think science knows, actually.”

As a concerned citizen and a professional writer, I find it deeply frustrating when politicians engage in fictional storytelling — weaving narratives to bolster their personal agendas at the expense of those they’ve pledged to serve. Even though many of us content creators are engaged in crafting works of fiction, I believe that it’s our civic responsibility to practice what Ernest Hemingway preached.

“The writer’s job is to tell the truth.”

In order to do that, let’s check in with what science actually does know about climate change. NASA recently compiled a vast collection of international studies from peer-reviewed scientific journals, reporting that 97% or more of actively publishing climate scientists have come to the same consensus, with over 95% certainty. The destructive impact of climate change is “the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia.”

With such overwhelming scientific data in our hands, why would anyone, particularly those with the power to mitigate humanity’s role in this accelerated planetary destruction, deny that climate change exists? To answer this question, we need to take some advice from the 1976 film All the President’s Men.

“Follow the money.”

After compiling data from every country, Statista found that the world’s top oil producer — the United States — was also home to the world’s most climate change deniers. “Other countries with high rates of deniers were Saudi Arabia and Australia, two more countries reliant on oil products for exports or use at home. Scandinavian countries also ranked highly, with oil nation Norway recording the second-highest rate of people believing in climate change not caused by humans.”

When you look at this data alongside the fact that just 100 fossil fuel companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions, and then factor in a recent study showing that oil and gas companies give more money to congress members with voting records against the environment, some clear motivations come into focus behind the false narrative of climate change denial. The same people who deny climate change also claim that solutions like the Green New Deal are too expensive, even as Scientific American reports that “such policies are now more urgent than ever” and “offer a timely framework for future fiscal stimulus.”

Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard historian of science, pointed out the familiar ways in which the COVID-19 crisis has echoed the steps of climate change denial. “First, one denies the problem, then one denies its severity, and then one says it is too difficult or expensive to fix, and/or that the proposed solution threatens our freedom.”

The threat-to-freedom narrative invoked against scientifically proven life-saving masks rose to a new level when President Trump himself contracted COVID-19, along with several others in the White House. In the aftermath of these diagnoses, which arose following a largely maskless political gathering, the administration affirmed that there would remain no mandatory mask mandate in the White House because wearing a mask is a “personal choice.” This declaration came hot on the heels of a Cornell University study that analyzed over 38 million news articles about the pandemic and revealed that, “the president of the United States was the single largest driver of misinformation around COVID.”

President Trump has continuously pushed to reopen the economy, even when COVID cases were peaking in July and a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security reported, “It’s very clear that the increasing caseload is due to premature relaxing of the containment measures.”

This rush to reboot the failing economy in a reelection year has coincided with a campaign to reopen schools so that parents can return to work. At a September rally, President Trump claimed that the virus affects “virtually” no young people — a direct contradiction to a World Health Organization report from a month earlier citing that the proportion of young people with COVID-19 had tripled in five months.

Indeed, when it comes to both climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, the health and prosperity of our youth are in immediate and existential jeopardy. But even as they face overwhelming climate grief and anxiety over an uncertain future, our younger generations are not standing by and letting their elders destroy their world without a fight.

UNICEF reported an uptick in youth activism online in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic; and youth-led organizations like The Sunrise Movement have gained swift momentum in the fight for a climate revolution. As young people work to shift the narrative from apathy and despair towards action and revolution, professional storytellers should follow suit.

Actionable Insights

In the face of false narratives that disregard science and threaten our planet’s future, here are some actionable insights for content creators:

1. Avoid treating climate change or COVID-19 data as a subjective or partisan issue. Stick to objective scientific facts and call out unfounded lies for what they are.
2. Show the roots of science denial in the fossil fuel industry and the motivations of politicians who accept money from such interests.
3. Depict the ways in which youth are impacted by the destructive politics of older generations, including the very real emotional toll of climate anxiety.
4. When depicting the devastating impact of climate change in your stories, combat apathy and despair by highlighting real-world solutions, offering hope for a reimagined future.
5. Rather than showing social media as a corruptive scourge of our youth, authentically portray the young people who are using it to spread accurate information and rally social movements.
6. Depict Gen Z and Gen Alpha characters not through self-involved stereotypes, but rather as a civically involved group fighting for their own future.

As Susan Ostermann wrote in her article “Why Politicizing Science is a Problem” for Notre Dame University’s Keough School of Global Affairs, “integral human development in the coronavirus era requires us to consider the dignity of the individual person, whose health and safety in this case depends on the availability of accurate information, expert guidance and responsible political leadership.”

In the absence of such responsible political leadership, let’s use our platforms as storytellers to uphold accurate information and expert guidance, promoting health and prosperity for all. The fate of the human race is our story to tell, but only the truth will ensure us a happy ending.

Brian McAuley, MFA

WGA Screenwriter

Adjunct Professor, Columbia University

Collaborator of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers

Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Center for Scholars & Storytellers.

Originally published at https://www.scholarsandstorytellers.com on November 2, 2020.