"When the government is so clearly failing to act on climate change... it's not surprising that the level of doubt about climate change has risen."

A cogent insight — by Green Party leader Natalie Bennett — into a UK poll that shows disbelief in climate change has spiked 400% in the last 8 years.

Obviously, Bennett means to shame the government for failing to act on climate change, but the failure to act is evidence that the people rationally take into account. Failure to act like it's an emergency is circumstantial evidence that there is no emergency, and it can be more persuasive than assertions that there is an emergency.

If someone says that house is on fire but doesn't leave the house, we tend to doubt that the house is on fire and wonder why that person is trying to get us to leave the house. For years, people have looked at the disconnect between Al Gore's lectures about our profligate burning of fossil fuel and seen his extravagant indulgence in power consumption. What going on?

And yet, while Al Gore could institute a rigorous green policy for himself, governments can't do drastic things without strong support from people. There's a terrible bind. The less government does, the more people think that nothing needs to be done. After a while, it's not only the failure to act as evidence of that the alarmist doesn't believe his own alarm. It's also the unfolding of reality without having taken precautions.