Shortly after the Second World War, the famous naturalist, Gerald Durrell, was collecting animals in Cameroon.  While he generally got on well with the locals wherever he went, one frustration he encountered was that villagers might again and again offer him the same tortoise, despite his emphatic protestations that he did not want it.  But they would reply "You didn't want it from that man, but maybe you want it from me."

Now the villagers may not have understood the principles of scientific animal collecting, but they were spot-on as regards human nature.  I could easily draw a lesson from this in regard to you-know-what, but instead I would rather look at the context of climate change and global warming.  In the online section of a conservative British newspaper such as the Daily Telegraph, you will find many of the anti-global warming fraternity, such as those who comment on this linked article*.  However, I think their resistance to the idea is strongly fortified by the fact that climate change has become an "issue" with so many of our politicians, particularly of the left-liberal variety.  Even the softer of our conservative politicians do not want to be left out.  And looking across the Atlantic to Al Gore does nothing to ameliorate their attitude.

Now take politicians and lawyers especially (and oh how many of our politicians come from a legal background!),  managers and policemen and women too, but also the man or woman on the street.  All these largely live and work in an environment where the "African Tortoise Effect" is operative.  One is more likely to accept something from a person in one's own party rather than the opposition.  But just as Mao Zedong could not change the basis of agricultural science simply by telling the peasants to plant ten times as many rice seedlings, neither does the infrared spectrum of carbon dioxide change to accommodate one's political orientation.  But "shouting the odds" in such a way that the other party cannot change their stance without losing face will not help the truth to come out, whether it concerns known knowns or unknown unknowns.

(* Climate change: When evidence battles with belief )