Still trying to figure out how (and why) climate change deniers think the way they think?

No comments here, just excerpts:

I'd rather not know: the psychology of climate denial


"Yet there may also be a darker explanation. It is the human instinct to shut out or modify a terrifying truth: that the world as we know it is heading for a smash."

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"Even scientists reluctantly pushed by their growing sense of alarm into launching public appeals for action have trouble coping.

When Clive Hamilton, a professor of public ethics at Australian National University, attended a September climate conference at Oxford tasked with imagining a world warmed by 4.0 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit), he was struck by how researchers spoke among themselves.

"It was very revealing. As they relaxed somewhat, they began to speak about their fears, about losing sleep, not wanting to think about the implications of what they do," he recalled."

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"Hamilton, who is running for Parliament in Australia, said more and more people he meets are having what he calls an "Oh sh*t!" moment.

"It's that moment when you really get it, when you understand not just intellectually but emotionally that climate change is really happening. I think we will see a rush of that over the next couple of years," he said.

It may take one or more terrible shocks -- national bankruptcies, a major environmental disaster in a vulnerable country like Bangladesh -- for that to happen, said Grayling."