> Talk to people who are misinformed. Don't shun them out of your life.
At this stage everyone who doesn't accept the seriousness of climate collapse is either a liar (self-interested billionaires who want to make a shitload of money from it) or is clinging to denialism as part of a neurotic identity attachment. They are not remotely amenable to the effects of 'information'. I wouldn't advocate shunning the latter group, but there's no point in engaging with them on the topic either.
> At this stage everyone who doesn't accept the seriousness of climate collapse is either a liar (self-interested billionaires who want to make a shitload of money from it) or is clinging to denialism as part of a neurotic identity attachment.
I don't think that's entirely true (or, at least, not entirely true in my personal experience). Various folks end up in bubbles of one sort or another where they just never are exposed to good arguments in favor of the theory of anthropogenic climate change. Case in point: the Fox-watching great-uncle I visited a few weekends ago. We ended up having a good talk over some beers and ended with him in a more open-minded if not totally convinced position. One thing he mentioned that stuck with me was that he appreciated being treated like neither a child, a dupe or a provocateur, which is how he'd generally felt in the past when having stupid internet arguments on boomerbook about this topic. Treating everyone who's not on board with a particular social position (and yeah, I'd call this a social position at this point) like they're in that spot for the most nefarious reasons imaginable is a great way of moving them from a possible convert to a die-hard denialist.
So, I'd say you may be right about engaging with online trolls, but expanding that logic to people you actually know (and therefore are more likely to be able to influence / are probably not paid shills) is overzealous and possibly counterproductive.
Well yes I'll accept 'everyone' is an over-generalisation. It's broadly true though, and outside of a couple of backward recalcitrants (the US & Australia come to mind), levels of outright denialism are low enough that they're really no longer the main field of battle. Strategic denialists have moved on, and will stay ahead (as they have been for 30 years) if we stay behind 'debating' the science with the stragglers.
One thing he mentioned that stuck with me was that he appreciated being treated like neither a child, a dupe or a provocateur
How does he act, though? In my experience people who just want to be steered to good information are treated well but there's growing hostility toward the abundant bad actors in discussion of this topic.
The neurotic attachment is to the political/economic status quo. As they know this is incompatible with dealing with climate collapse, motivated cognition leads them to climate change denialism. This is not remotely 'skepticism', rather a kind of nostalgic credulity.
At this stage everyone who doesn't accept the seriousness of climate collapse is either a liar (self-interested billionaires who want to make a shitload of money from it) or is clinging to denialism as part of a neurotic identity attachment. They are not remotely amenable to the effects of 'information'. I wouldn't advocate shunning the latter group, but there's no point in engaging with them on the topic either.