Read on Twitter
I’m stuck by the parallels between the ant-LTN and healthy streets lobby and climate change deniers from 10 or 15 years ago. Every new piece of evidence they don’t like is another data point to quibble over. 1.. https://twitter.com/adamtranter/status/1341679259266461698
For the climate guys it was “you can’t extrapolate from ice cores” or “the weather station are in urban heat islands” or “you haven’t accounted for solar flares”. 2..
For the driving guys “the counters are in the wrong place” or “August was particularly sunny this year“ or “they should have used this obscure statistical technique that I just googled”. It’s all nonsense of course. 3...
The overall theme is of academics and the authorities manipulating evidence to support their narrative and only the lonely campaigner is brave enough or smart enough to call them out. 4..
I used to work with a climate denier and I’ve come across a few LTN-sceptics. They are invariably men, 50+, articulate, authoritative and educated - just not in subject they are obsessed with. The internet has given them an audience. Think Andrew Neil or Nigel Lawson. 5..
They are incapable of conceiving that someone else might know more than them or that the world might not work in exactly the way they think it does. Eventually the weight of evidence overwhelms them but they do a huge amount of damage in the meantime. 6.
Ok it’s maybe not an exclusively male phenomenon https://twitter.com/juliahb1/status/1341764891426906117
Final one on this - it turns out it is a recognised phenomenon.
