How to beat denial - a 12-step plan

We live in a world haunted by the issue of climate change. A world with problems seemingly so severe and out of control that to stop and think about them is to risk intellectual and emotional paralysis. So we take the issue apart in small doses and sugar the pill with familiar, but ultimately destructive, distractions wherever we can.

Witness the papers on the day the Stern report was published. The front pages told us that the problem of climate change was official and real and important – as if it hadn’t been just one day before. But elsewhere in the daily papers there was little comment or analysis of the report’s implications. Instead it was business as usual – with some of the financial pages reporting, for instance, that Quantas had ordered eight new airbus A380 superjets; while others fêted the arrival of the first long-haul airline to offer non-stop flights from Gatwick to Hong Kong for just £75 one way.

The Times encouraged readers to start collecting its air miles, and boasted a free flight to Europe for every reader. The Independent...

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