I recently heard a panel interview on NPR discussing how climate change and environmental policy will affect how people vote in November. A self-identified conservative panel member said that people have “different opinions about the science” of climate change. This particular person was not in fact a climate change denier, but was referring to climate change denial among Republicans. I think “different opinions” here is a kind of euphemism. It sounds a lot better than “straight up rejecting reality.”

It’s true that people have opinions about science, though. People can have legitimate opinions on, for example, what scientists should be researching and how. These opinions are not necessarily well-informed, but are legitimate nonetheless. On the other hand, it is not legitimate to have an opinion about whether a fact is true. One can agree or disagree with the proposition that such-and-such is the case, but that is a belief about reality and not a matter of opinion.

So science denial is not really a matter of “different opinions.” It’s far more dire: people have profound differences in belief about what is true. This is a problem in politics because it is incredibly hard to find common ground with someone who believes reality is something other than what it is. Even when there is a common goal, the way to reach that goal could be completely different. Consider a hypothetical person who is concerned about illegal immigration, but thinks the way to stop illegal immigration is to erect bouncy houses every 100 yards along the border. It doesn’t matter at that point whether you agree with them about illegal immigration being a problem; their plan is both impractical and wouldn’t work. Suppose however that this hypothetical person is completely convinced that their plan will work. They believe it as strongly as they believe anything. Where would you even begin to work with such a person on border policy? It seems like it would cause a total impasse.

This is essentially what is happening in the US government with respect to climate change. We can’t make any progress with environmental policy because a large number of Republicans deny climate science, and it’s a disaster. Saying people have different opinions fails to capture the situation.