This is part of a comment that turned up on another part of Harmless Sky:

Robin Guenier says:

March 6th, 2009 at 8:55 am

Here an interesting story: this weekend, the University of the West of England is holding a conference on “Climate Change Denial”, organised by (wait for it) the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies. It will be “bringing together a group of people – climate change activists, eco-psychologists [!!], psychotherapists and social researchers – who are uniquely qualified to assess the human dimensions of this human-made problem”. Professor Hoggett, who is helping to organise the conference, says:

We will examine denial from a variety of different perspectives – as the product of addiction to consumption, as the outcome of diffusion of responsibility and the idea that someone else will sort it out and as the consequence of living in a perverse culture which encourages collusion, complacency, irresponsibility.

http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=63&cp=31#comment-12166

Robin goes on to make the point that the usual cause of scepticism is a lack of convincing evidence; a perfectly rational response to uncertainty.

Apparently this has not occurred to the organisers of this conference, who seem intent on treating climate scepticism as a pathological condition. Perhaps they have never wondered whether likening anyone who just happens not to share their convictions to holocaust deniers is altogether normal? And what might they think about Christian fundamentalists who refer to the followers of other faiths as heathens?

But it was the reference to eco-psychologists that really caught my eye. What on earth could that be about? A vegan shrink who rides a solar powered bicycle perhaps?

I had to go no further than the Daily Green website to find out: Continue reading »