Neophobia

"Novelty is deeply disturbing, especially when people have built their lives around the old way." Tom Wright, Luke for Everyone. 
Is this the fundamental reason for the current bad behaviour in public life? The world is being drawn, willy nilly, into a new energy regime, and therefore a new way of living. The threat of Climate Change is forcing humanity to reconsider not simply how we live but who we are in relation to nature/creation, and the ones who have been advantaged most by the old regime are the ones who are fighting with whatever means they have at their disposal against the change to the new. Some of their means are deeply unethical. Lying, recasting history shamelessly to suit their own version of reality, besmirching the reputations of opponents and bringing them before the courts, and corrupting scientific method to cast doubt on scientific findings that they don't like are some of the tactics they use. But the change is inevitable. Resisting it will only make the process more painful. In one way or another we are already paying and will continue to lay a price on carbon.