This year is said to be the biggest for democracy ever with almost everyone who is allowed to vote getting a chance to mark their X. Here in the UK, we are heading to the half-way point of a General Election and we’ve had the first set of TV debates. While many complain that climate change and other environmental issues don’t get much of a look in, I often find myself wincing when they does get crowbarred in.

Why?

Because of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. In a nutshell, this is a cognitive bias where people who know least about a topic tend to be most confident in their view. Effectively this means that those who believe climate change is a myth are much more forthright in their views than those who have a better grasp of the science. And being forthright gets more cut through in, say, a seven-way TV debate than a measured explanation of the risks and uncertainties associated with a highly complex bit of science and economics. So if someone blithely says “Net Zero will bankrupt Britain”, it is very difficult to bat that away in a one-liner (if you can, put it in the comments below and I’ll steal it!)

As Ronald Reagan put it “if you’re explaining, you’re losing.” One exception this time seems to be sewage – it’s pretty difficult to argue that excrement in streams and on beaches is AOK. But carbon emissions, pesticides and air quality tend to be much more difficult as you can’t see them in the same gruesome way.

The problem can be exacerbated by journalists who, to be fair, have to be able to question across a huge range of issues, from fiscal drag to cancer survival rates, never mind environmental economics (but some want to land a ‘zinger’ above all else.) Kudos then to ITV’s Anushka Asthana who methodically exposed the incoherent position of Reform UK’s Richard Tice on climate in the post-leaders’ debate interviews last Tuesday.

I wish someone could do the same with the Prime Minister who seems to believe we can get to Net Zero without changing anything at all. That one is very simple, you just have to ask “How?” I would pay to see that.

Anyway, I guess I’ll be wincing a lot more over the next few weeks.

Full disclosure: I’m a Liberal Democrat Councillor but writing in a personal capacity