As front pages are dominated by apocalyptic images of fire and drought at home and abroad, we are getting a masterclass in denial, not least the deliciously tin-eared Times headline/picture juxtaposition earlier this week (see right). “Climate change is real, but Net Zero would wreck our economy.” says Tory Leader Kemi Badenoch. “Climate change is real but we need to drop Net Zero so we can install air conditioning” appears to be the argument in the Telegraph today. I’m not paying the Telegraph for this nonsense, so I have to guess the paywall-inflicted gaps in that argument – I take it as read they don’t explain how air con quenches wildfires or irrigates our fields.

I’ve long said that the biggest barrier to Sustainability is just six inches wide, the space between our ears. When people feel their deeply held beliefs are being demolished, they will contort themselves into all kinds of uncomfortable mental shapes to cling on to them. While a huge amount of scorn is rightly being poured over the purveyors of such tripe, I don’t hold out much hope for changing minds through force of argument. Here’s what’s more likely to work:

A visceral personal experience. I recall a previously sceptical Daily Mail reporter travelling to the Arctic, witnessing a melting glacier and ‘converting’. Now that could have been a local and/or seasonal melt, but it had a massive impact on him. I, of course, had my own Road to Damascus moment witnessing acid rain damage in Russia which took me from armchair activist to dedicating my life to Sustainability.

Vested interests. Noticeably, the Telegraph has also published a couple of pro-Net Zero pieces this week. Whether that’s them hedging a bit to avoid embarrassment as the evidence punches us in the face, or the influence of the paper’s new owner Axel Springer which has a Net Zero target, I don’t know, but something is shifting. There’s a saying that there are no climate deniers in the insurance industry, and as the clean energy industry snowballs, we’ll see more and more people whose job relies on not emitting carbon.

Peer pressure. When my street first got recycling crates, I was the first to put one out. I put it out every week without fail and pretty soon another household joined me. And another. And another. It wasn’t long before the whole street was recycling – no-one wanted to be seen not to recycle. If I’m running a stakeholder workshop and somebody doesn’t want to play ball, I tell them I’ll talk to them after I’ve got everyone started on the first exercise. They usually just give up and join in.

The inexorable march of time. There’s an old joke that academia progresses one funeral at a time. Climate denial is much more prevalent in the 65+ male demographic than the rest of the population. As those elderly gents pick up their carriage clocks and shuffle off to the golf course bar to pontificate on ‘wokeness’, their influence will wane. Their places will be taken by those who grew up with a basic understanding of climate science and seeing wind turbines and electric vehicles as perfectly normal.

Remember, Sustainability is about change and change is about psychology. Facts don’t change entrenched minds, emotion does.