Thanksgiving discussion

I probably chose the wrong person to seriously sit down and discuss climate change for the first time: my uncle. He's incredibly intelligent, quick witted and, it seems, knowledgeable about every issue. His one fault is that he's horribly opinionated and very biased; he's a staunch Republican who watches only Fox News (and can also be frequently seen sporting many different Rush Limbaugh tees) and is famously obstinate about his beliefs. I tend to not discuss any 'controversial' topics with him because of just how intense and personal he gets. However, he's the only one in my family who is 'familiar' enough with the subject to have a solid opinion and I knew he would be an eager participant.

I learned much from our discussion - especially about how to prepare myself for future conversations on the subject. I was not surprised when my uncle played the politics card (he views it all as Democratic propaganda), or when he pulled the 'lack of science' card - I had rebuttals for those (having recently looked over the "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic" article again to make sure I had my facts straight before our chat I was able to counter many of the points he made about there being a 'lack of evidence' and his assertion that this was just another one of our planet's natural fluctuations), and was able to raise counter points to the Democratic propoganda. However, I really was stumped when he brought religion into it. When we began discussing alternative energy sources his response was simply that God had put fossil fuels in the earth for us to use and aid in our progress, so we should use them as long as we could. In addition he was also certain anything created by God could have no negative effects, so he saw no connection between the two. Having never discussed climate change from that perspective, I was stumped. Religion is obviously another one of those 'better left alone' topics and who am I to judge or potentially insult anyone else's beliefs? I tread carefully, asking what we would do after fossil fuels ran out, and but the conversation fizzled.

In order to discuss the subject with someone like my Uncle, I realized I needed to learn the facts more thoroughly so that I would be able to sound more like I really, really knew what I was talking about. In the future, if he brings up one point, I want to be able to instantly have a rebuttal. I also realized how important it was to stay calm, hear him out and not get too worked up. I think it's something that will get better with practice!

One thing I will bring up next time are the ideas within Cradle to Cradle. I think he'd actually be really interested in the text and it'd be a great way to show him that economics and environmentalism actually can go hand in hand. Maybe it would help take the 'taint' off environmentalism for him. But that's a project for Christmas break!