Why do people deny the science of climate change?

Mostly because of ideology. Link

Nice summary of what we know about climate change. I’ve never understood the opposition to environmentalism. Who doesn’t want clean air, energy independence, and the jobs created by the renewable energy industry? Here in Iowa, we have factories that build windmills, that are major employers in fairly rural areas. It seems to me that most opposition to climate change science is rooted in loyalty to a party, which in turn is rooted in deep-seated cultural beliefs and animosity towards highly educated “elitists”.

I once had coffee with a climate skeptic who explained that he simply believed that the science was shoddy, but in the same conversation pointed me towards creation science as an example of science he believed in. I’m not sure if he caught on to the incongruity of the two claims. I’m a Christian, I believe that God created the universe, but how he did it is a mystery to me. I don’t believe Him to be a God of confusion, so I don’t understand why the Earth appears to be millions of years old if it is not. I do however believe that the process of science, the back and forth, proving and disproving, debating and digging and testing the world we live in, is a means by which we can discover the mechanics of God. The rules He set in place that govern our lives, like gravity, like the way light travels on a wave, like the way positive and negative attracts.

Proverbs 19:20 says “Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.” It seems unwise to discard the advice of people who work in climate science about climate science, and instead claim to believe a politician with ties to the oil industry.

I’ve heard other arguments against climate change like “God is in control of the weather.” OK, true. But won’t God also allow us to experience the natural consequences of our actions? If I drop a brick on my head, it’s going to hurt! If we are poor stewards of God’s creation, I imagine He’s going to let us experience the consequences.

In Christianity, you must believe that Jesus is the son of God and that he died for your sins, and accept that as the only way to Heaven after death. The wonderful and terrible thing about science is that it doesn’t matter what you believe. You can believe in a flat Earth all day long, doesn’t make it true. You can claim that climate change is a hoax all you want, but the oceans are warming and rising, and the ice caps are melting, and the forests are on fire, and the weather is getting more extreme, and everything the environmentalists said was going to happen… is happening.