The Social Acceptability List 2015

As the New Year approaches, we reflect on a bumper year in the world of social discourse. Here’s a little run down of the movers and shakers in this year’s Social Acceptability List, which is compiled by the Fallen in Public and its patchy memory and is about what politicians, newspapers and netizens went on about and how. What’s in? What’s out? What’s OK? What’s not? Read on to find out...

In today's edition... IT'S OUT!  - Global Warming Denial.

Moving down the social acceptability list is global warming denial. Indeed, the change of the term from climate change “sceptic” to “denier” is nothing if not a symbol of its removal from social acceptability. As the evidence and arguments roundly mock UKIP, America’s Republicans, and right-wing media, their own arguments have shifted from “Does it exist?” to “Are humans responsible?” When the evidence shoots them down on that one, they point out that China and India aren’t doing anything about it, so why should we? Each defeat in the argument leads to another phoney point, another goalpost move, leaving observers to conclude that these ‘sceptics’ are no more than reactionary idiots who can’t accept that they were wrong. But don’t expect them to lower their arms too soon; rather, as the debate shifts we can expect new villains in the deniers’ crosshairs: aliens, sheep, the unemployed...

A few days ago, I heard a UKIP woman on Radio 4’s Any Questions begin her spiel with “Well... the climate’s always changed, the question is whether it’s human involvement that’s causing it now.” The groans from the audience let out a huge, collective “Get over it!” The same response, though slightly more muted, greeted the Daily Mail cartoonist, Quentin Letts, on Question Time. A lot of the support of narrow-minded parties and newspapers depends on convincing their listeners that these ‘new-fangled fads’, like social media, craft beers or, indeed, global warming are nonsense. “In my day all you needed was a packet of Chum Chum Goodies Gums in your back pocket, and I doff me hat to the postman and off we trot!”

But the Earth is round, the holocaust really happened, and global warming is real – get over it. So, while the climate summit’s been going on in Paris recently, deniers have been far less vocal than in the past. Global warming denial, henceforth, is on its way out.