Denial wears many faces. [View all]

[GliderGuider]

Whether it's average people who are too busy with their lives to take on board the more extreme reports of environmental degradation; bloggers and politicians who believe that it's all a hoax cooked up by evil scientists to get grant money for bogus studies; or, perhaps surprisingly, the green activists who believe that more political or technological change will improve or even fix the situation - these are common techniques we use to avoid confronting the horror of global collapse face-to-face.

We are all familiar with the faces of climate change denial. The Koch brothers, James Inhofe, Anthony Watts and the host of bloggers and politicians work tirelessly to derail any efforts to address humanity's greatest existential crisis since the Toba super-volcano 75,000 years ago. They are a resilient species, their fact-resistance bolstered by inoculations of status and cash.

But this form of denial is easy to spot. There is a more subtle form, one that is endemic among the white hats of the green movement. They are the ones who tirelessly work from the moral high ground - to change policies, to develop and promote renewable technologies, to encourage sustainability. They resolutely refuse to countenance any thoughts of our predicament being inextricable. Tireless work, even in a lost cause, tends to keep one insulated from the deeper, darker realizations. One more policy change, one more solar panel, one more hugelkultur bed - the world will be a better place and the fears will be quiet for a little while. "Quitters never win and winners never quit!"

Is it unfair to characterize (at least some) green activists as being (at least somewhat) in denial? Possibly. But it's true more often than you might expect.