that the world was on a path to a very unpleasant future, that it’s too late to stop it, and that climate scientists themselves are in a state of barely suppressed panic.At a writers’ festival, a well-known scientist took me behind a tent and berated me for taking away people’s hope. “So,” I asked, “are you saying we should lie?”
Spending my days working on matters unrelated to climate helped, but it could not douse the burning anger I felt towards those who were responsible for preventing any effective response to the scientific warnings. The tide has turned against the deniers, although for most people the full truth is still hard to swallow
. Whether someone cares or not depends on individual psychology. For more than a hundred years, psychological sciences have focused on drugging victims instead of addressing the psychology of perpetrators. .