On bogus ideas of climatic cycles

I can't count the number of times that people - and I'm talking about well-educated, intelligent, on the whole thoughtful people - counter any carbon rant with the old 'climate cycles' argument. This being the 'world has always experienced periods of hot and cold climates, and we're now in a hot cycle' mouldy chestnut, as propounded by Channel 4's 'The Great Climate Change Swindle', which, frankly, was as full of baloney as, well, a sausage shop in Bologna. Mark thinks Channel 4 should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity - or maybe even genocide - for airing it.

The science of that argument has been roundly disproved, but what is more interesting is the psychology. For years, scientists and politicians alike have played down the threat posed by climate change, on the grounds that it would frighten the populace as a whole into inaction. Now that they're heating up their rhetoric, most people are turning a blind eye. They don't want to believe. They don't want to give up the things they perceive to be luxuries. They are unwilling to swallow a small pill now in order to avoid a massive suppository later. And each time they find a way to deny what's happening, more people are dying.

I had dinner the other night with a man I much respect who, until fairly recently, was the editor of a quality British broadsheet newspaper. He has for some time taken the 'natural cycle' path. This time, when I asked whether he still didn't believe in man's contribution to climate change, he appeared to have softened a little.
'I'm not sure,' he said. "There might be some contribution, but not nearly as much as the scientists suggest.'
'So why,' I asked, 'do they all agree about what's happening?'
'Ha. That is what I find so suspicious; the fact that all the scientists agree. It smells of conspiracy.'
'So if there were some dissenters, you might be persuaded?'
'Possibly. It would certainly be more plausible. I mean, when do all scientists agree about anything?'
'When it's incontrovertible?'
'When they need funding. Look, what's going to happen, when they discover that it's not nearly as bad as we're being led to believe? People like you are going to look pretty stupid then.'

I was so dumbfounded that I didn't have the wit to point out how idiotic people like him are going to look when we discover that it's so very much worse...