I’ve recently delved into the world of climatology in an attempt to collect data supporting opposition to the climate change policy agenda. While I’ve been largely successful in this endeavour thus far, that’s not what I want to write about today. Today’s post deals with another irritant I’ve run into on this quest, namely the conflation of climatology and environmentalism.

A cursory glance at any essay, article or blog which critiques “climate deniers” invariably frames their subject as an ignorant petrolhead who spends his (the caricature is almost always male) time kicking trees, pouring crude oil down a shark’s gullet or pulling the legs from woodlice (probably). It’s the most ridiculous of false dichotomies, and it’s a very high bar these days. Nobody uses language with requisite accuracy on this issue, leading to preposterous conflations which I wish to rectify here.

Climate change policy activists are principally concerned with a change in global temperature averages (relative to what nobody really knows, but that’s for another day). This is a (in my view, pseudo)scientific policy area almost entirely separate from the emotional philia which characterises environmentalism, which itself encompasses a much broader range of focus points, including but not limited to; animal welfare, rewilding, conservation, habitat destruction, air and water pollution, and so on.

I’m sure many “climate deniers” like myself equally share my passion, zeal even, for these green issues.

Conversely, many climate activists appear relatively unperturbed by such issues. They demand that we cease meat consumption, without admitting that the logical conclusion of this is a pointless mass killing of livestock on an unprecedented scale. Similarly, they approve the transformation of forests and other green land – which are, by the way, natural carbon sinks – into fields of glass and asphalt to produce renewables. They conjure absurd blueprints for fantastical inventions simply to avoid having to plant trees.

And so, it cannot be assumed that a climate change activist is an environmentalist any more than we may assume a nutritionist is a sports fan. A climate change denier, therefore, is simply one who disagrees with the policy response to anthropogenic climate change, or the evidence upon which the initial charge is based, which does not preclude environmentalism in any sense.