[blunderchief]

I can speak to this, at least anecdotally.

Some of my family are conspiratorial thinkers, trumpy types. They’re in Texas, where the power grid is continuing to slowly buckle, and they will happily agree it’s hotter than it used to be, even getting too hot. They also agree that pollution is bad.

But they simply don’t connect the two. They don’t think we can possibly be the sole reason for climate change, but why they think that is fluid — it’s gods creation and we can’t mess with that. Or if we can it doesn’t matter because we’re destined for a heavenly kingdom and this planet will pass away. Or they say more “grounded” things like we’re getting closer to the sun or the sun itself is hotter. Or they buy into the idea for a while that it’s just a natural oscillation. We’re actually headed towards an ice age!

My theory is they’re inconsistent because they do accept it, but accepting it means they have to understand consciously that shit is bleak and it makes all the work they’ve done in their lives potentially meaningless. They don’t want to face the reckoning of disillusionment so they close their eyes to it.

Or maybe they just don’t believe it. I don’t know, I’m not in their brains.