Most climate deniers are basically good people that have been duped by the propaganda of oil apologists, deniosaurs, and hard-core climate deniers.
The latter group are minions of the fossil fuel industry and do their bidding.
@GeraldKutney I tend to make the same argument from time to time, so I'm not disagreeing with you.
But....
At what point are people responsible for their own education?
As we see with COVID, and there's a lot of parallels, there's a fine line between ignorance and willful ignorance that allows you to, cognitively, escape doing anything that inconveniences you.
Sure. So, where do we draw the line?
"You're a good person, but, you're super busy in life and don't take in any news, so climate change doesn't exist in your life."
"You're a good person, but, you believe being educated means watching the local news 3 times a week, so every now and then you think about recycling."
"You're a good person, but, you watch nothing but Tucker Carlson as your only news source, so you think that climate change is a hoax."(probably...I've never actually seen that show)
"You're a good person, but, you read everything out there about climate change and decided that that 0.1% of scientific literature that denies human caused climate change must be correct, so you choose to do nothing about it."
Honestly, I struggle with deciding where the line is with people in my own life. At some point in the spectrum you've clearly moved from "good person who doesn't know better" to "this seems hard, I don't want to deal with it, so it's easier for me to pretend it's not real."
@BE You strike against the heart of the problem, which is the propaganda and those leading its promotion
OK, so in your mind, in an ideal world situation, there's no misinformation and everyone is informed of objective truth only?
I just think that's a fantasy world that'll never exist, so, you have to deal with the people who actually exist in your life who are misinformed and decide which are in that state intentionally and which are in that state by accident.
I'll finish my thought on that this way.
You say:
"Most climate deniers are basically good people that have been duped by the propaganda of oil apologists, deniosaurs, and hard-core climate deniers."
and I'd change it to
"Many climate deniers are basically good people that have been duped, while most have taken an active role by choosing to believe the propaganda of oil apologists, deniosaurs, and hard-core climate deniers because it makes their day to day lives easier."
@BE @GeraldKutney Simplifying language is good for delivering single ideas, but I believe we shouldn't try to draw a line. All wrongs are not equal, but even small wrong is still wrong. Responsibility for your actions, inaction, knowledge and opinions grows with abilities and influence. Those are somewhat invisible qualities, but level of education, freedom, social status and relative success in life may act as proxy for how harshly you should judge the wrongs that people do, including yourself.
@BE @GeraldKutney A dumb nobody may deserve some scolding for their stubborn stupidity (but it might not be worth it), while on the other hand someone influential has failed to educate them and deserve most of the blame.
Then some influential people deliberately sow destruction for their own benefit. I believe they deserve harsh criminal punishment and their influence should be removed.
@BE To many ... propaganda "wins" over education