Climate change, anti-vaxxers, and ‘alternative facts’.

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The last days of February were somewhat of a shock to the system of humans and nature alike, as temperatures rose to 21 degrees celsius in Kew, and many parts of Northwestern Europe saw April-like weather conditions. Whilst most people were enjoying the sun by lunching in parks, eating ice cream, and chatting on terraces, something about these scenes were equally unsettling. Clearly these temperatures are far from normal, and enjoying it felt an awful lot like the famous meme where Jay-Z bobs his head to music with an anxious expression on his face.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently released a report detailing what will happen if the Earth warms by 1.5 degrees celsius or by 2 degrees, and issued stark warnings. The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned of the health risks associated with climate change and an increased air pollution, and unsurprisingly the poorest people in low income countries who are far from the biggest polluters, will bear the brunt of the detrimental effects of climate change. In August 2018, 16 year old Greta Thunberg became somewhat of a celebrity when she started the school strikes for climate action that have become a phenomenon across Europe as of late. Expected petulance from the adults in the room aside, climate change has been firmly on the table. Whether through Greta and her age cohort’s school strikes, the IPCC’s reports, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal“, climate change is something finally talked about in earnest. The interesting phenomenons that come with this increased attention for climate change, are both climate change deniers and climate delayers.

Climate delayers (thanks for coining the term, AOC) are the climate change deniers more respectable cousins. These are people who are aware of the devastation of climate change, but are reluctant to support or enact drastic reform of laws and regulations to make a meaningful difference to reverse, or more realistically lessen, the devastation that awaits us and our progeny. These are often politicians who will say that they are already doing more than they should, and expediently postpone any major changes for long enough so the next administration can not deal with the issue. Climate change deniers are the people (like the US president) who have an absolute commitment to denying all the scientific evidence for global warming and climate change, and are hostile to any measures taken to mitigate the effects of climate change. This outright denial of the evidence is an interesting phenomenon. As we all know, countering climate change denial with facts or insults do not help change people’s minds — in fact, they might even get more entrenched and double down on their views even more (this is called cognitive dissonance). It is easy to believe that many of the climate change denying politicians have some kind of vested interest in maintaining the status quo, but the reasons why the general public might not believe in climate change are less obvious and more disparate. These reasons range from misinformation (‘alternative facts’ if you’re Kellyanne Conway), to a lack of knowledge on what global warming entails or what the consensus really is.

This brings me on to anti-vaxxers. Anti-vaxxers are often young, middle-class parents who have chosen not to vaccinate their children because vaccines cause autism. Let me make it absolutely crystal clear: vaccines DO NOT cause autism. There is no evidence for this, and Andrew Wakefield is a disgraced physician who lost his license because of his shoddy and unethical study. Those are the facts based on countless scientific studies, but relaying those facts will probably cause cognitive dissonance if it is someone’s strongly held belief that vaccines are a Big Pharma conspiracy that will endanger their child.

Recently, there have been countless measles outbreaks across the world, with, for example the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control identifying a suboptimal vaccination coverage to create herd immunity as the culprit. Many of the people who fell victim from this outbreak were young children who were too young to be vaccinated (and who, just like the immunocompromised, herd immunity is meant to protect). Just like with climate change, there seem to be people who are aware of the function and effectivity of vaccines, but think parents’ right to choose trumps public health. An argument can be made that if we are proponents of liberalism, individual liberty is of prime importance. Even so, John Stuart Mill, the father of liberalism, proposed that “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others”. Indeed, I would argue that governments being more diligent about getting at least 95% of the population vaccinated — perhaps even making them mandatory for those who aren’t immunocompromised — fits perfectly within Mill’s harm principle. Particularly when there are so many people who suffer without any choice in the matter, because of somebody else’s parent’s decision not to vaccinate their children. The most vulnerable in society bear the brunt of this, again, not unlike with climate change. Indeed, the WHO has named a lack of vaccination as one of the biggest threats to global health. Whilst low- and middle income countries, despite challenges, do their best to get vaccinations to the most vulnerable populations, there are instances where Westerners reintroduce preventable diseases to countries that had finally put a handle on them, and even export the fearsome stories of what might happen to vaccinated children. A recent example of exported disease it that of the French family who reintroduced measles to a measles-free Costa Rica. Situations like this give an eerily colonialist feel to the case. But I digress…

Whether it is climate scepticism, or anti-vaxxers, how we change people’s minds is a difficult question to answer. It is clear that questioning parents’ love for their children, or insulting climate sceptics is not working. Perhaps, in the case of climate change deniers, Greta and her peers’ strategy of striking until the grownups finally listen is a good idea. Maybe we should all be lobbying politicians, striking, signing petitions, at least so the policymakers end up doing something — the rest of the population might follow. When it comes to those firmly believing in the anti-vaccination movement it is important that we try to tackle these harmful untruths with evidence and understanding. Moreover, public health officials ought to do a better job at educating the population, the government ought to be more diligent in tackling misinformation, and journalists should stop inviting ‘both sides’ to create a sense of false balance. Scepticism is not a bad trait. Indeed, even a dose of scepticism towards established science is not necessarily a bad thing. But it is up to critical citizens to find factual and truthful answers to their questions based on research and scientific evidence, and why it is that scientists have reach consensus over something. I promise you, scientists do not reach consensus easily. So, I leave you with some sage advice: please, don’t believe everything you read on Facebook.