Aftermath of floods in Spain

Volunteers and locals help to clean the mud off the street following heavy rains in Paiporta, near Valencia. | REUTERS/Ana Beltran

Vicki McLeodPalma 08/11/2024 09:24
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I magine standing waist-deep in floodwater, holding your family pet above your head, while someone nearby insists, “Climate change isn’t real.” Despite fires, floods, and record-breaking heat waves, some still claim it’s all a “natural cycle” or—brace yourself—a “government plot.” You have to admire their persistence. For every scientist with decades of data, there’s a denier armed with internet memes and the unshakeable belief that they know better.

Take the recent catastrophic flooding in Valencia, Spain, caused by a DANA (Depresión Aislada en Niveles Altos). If you have been under a rock for this past week, you might not know that this weather phenomenon, exacerbated by unusually warm Mediterranean waters, unleashed a year’s worth of rain in mere hours, leading to over 200 fatalities. Streets turned into rivers, homes were swallowed up, and communities were left in devastation—all in the span of a day.

Denying climate change is not just laughable; it’s dangerous. While most of us are trying to reduce emissions and find solutions, climate deniers seem determined to sit on the sidelines, waving their “hoax” signs. Meanwhile, people drown in car parks, Arctic ice melts, seas rise, and storms grow fiercer. It’s a baffling refusal to acknowledge reality—especially when faced with record-breaking weather events like those in Valencia.

We’re not dealing with hypotheticals anymore; climate change is here, relentless and undeniable. Wildfires, droughts, floods, and hurricanes aren’t future possibilities—they’re today’s news headlines. And yet, climate denial, though shrinking, remains a relic of our fossil-fuelled past, a stubborn roadblock on the path to a livable future. Every ignored warning, every scoffed-at scientific finding, only digs us deeper into a crisis we will not be able to reverse.

It’s time for climate deniers to wake up. The evidence is flooding in, quite literally, and it’s time we let the data—not denial—lead the way.