Climate change

The polar ice sheets are melting faster in the past 20 years than they have in the last 10,000... How are people denying climate change?

3 big reasons. 1. Combatting climate chance demands a sacrifice from our parts and humans are used to seeing the entire Earth in service of them. They are not willing to stop going on holiday or don't have as many kids as they'd like to and so on. 

2. Because the elite abuses it to get more money out of the people's wallets by ecotaxes which will change absolutely nothing while problems are getting worse because they block almost every real initiative to protect the multinationals. Therefor many people think that it's just another trick from the elite to rob them because if there is one thing people hate it's paying taxes. Which is perfectly justified, taxes are mostly theft. Paying more for oil or any other resource isn't going to make that resource less polluting so when they start crying about such things it all seems completely absurd. 

3. We also have a natural warming at the moment so it's very easy to say it's all natural and the small percentage we are adding doesn't make much difference which is something I don't believe since nature is/was always in balance and you don't need much difference to tip over a scale.

The same way they deny evolution. The same way they think GMO soybeans will give you cancer. The same way people 100 years ago would put bags under the electricity outlets to catch the electricity if it leaked out, and the same way people refused to ride on trains 100 years before that for fear that humans would die if they moved faster than 25 miles an hour, or that the LHC would create a black hole and suck in the Earth a few years ago. The same way people still believe in god today, the same way people believe the moon landing was faked and the same way they believe in the Roswell alien coverup. The same way they believe in ghosts, or bigfoot, the loch ness monster, or that Elvis is still alive. The same way they believe that only whites can be racist, that only men can be sexist, the same way they believe that women get paid 77 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men, the same way they believe the 10 commandments are the foundation of modern law and ethics, or that America was founded as a Christian nation, and the same way they believe that dogs are better than cats and cuter too (THAT one is the craziest of them all, the people who believe that are REALLY messed up). The same way that people are still killed in Africa today for being "witches", the same way they believe their local sports team is better than all the others, and the same way they believe that if they pray hard enough, it will help them find their f***ing car keys. 

That said, global warming isn't going to have nearly as much an effect as the big outspoken proponents seem to think. Just don't invest in any low elevation real estate. Sea level's going up by a hundred feet or so over the next hundred years. Also, I wouldn't want to live closer too close to the equator.

First, awareness has grown to make certain that now the vast majority of Americans are aware of the climate change issue; and second, whereas Republicans and Democrats started out in the 1980s viewing the issue similarly, they have since polarized, to ensure now most Republicans reject anthropogenic climate change while most Democrats accept it.

I believe the reality is that people believe in climate change. Every science book and every religion. No one knows how to fix it. I could prove that it is an easy fix; however, would you pursue it, many have tried before? Search "cloud machines" or "Snow Making Machines" there at ski resorts and available to nasa.... Do either care to build bigger better ones to kick start the ecosystem? Search "reforesting deserts" Irrigation has helped already all over the world. If you want the links I will post.

Climate Change is real. The earth has been naturally warming since the “Little Ice Age”, with cooling cycles. 

Any human global climate signal is so small as to be nearly indiscernible against the background variability of the natural climate system. Climate change is always occurring. 

A phase of temperature stasis or cooling has succeeded the mild warming of the twentieth century. Similar periods of warming and cooling due to natural variability are certain to occur in the future irrespective of human emissions of greenhouse gases. 

Neither the rate nor the magnitude of the reported late twentieth century surface warming (1979–2000) lay outside the range of normal natural variability, nor were they in any way unusual compared to earlier episodes in Earth’s climatic history.

part of it could be a defense mechanism. there's not a whole lot i can individually do about it, and the powerful don't want change and fight it every step of the way. so burying one's head in the sand may be a way of numbing the fear.

Antarctic ice has been increasing. Arctic sea ice has been thinning, but at a small percentage compared to the annual fluctuation. 
The annual decrease of Arctic sea ice area is on the order of 0-1 km2. The annual fluctuation is 8-10 km2. 
I don't think anyone denies climate change. Climate has been changing ever since there was an atmosphere.

According to the NASA web site: 

"A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers." 

"The extra snowfall that began 10,000 years ago has been slowly accumulating on the ice sheet and compacting into solid ice over millennia, thickening the ice in East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica by an average of 0.7 inches (1.7 centimeters) per year. This small thickening, sustained over thousands of years and spread over the vast expanse of these sectors of Antarctica, corresponds to a very large gain of ice – enough to outweigh the losses from fast-flowing glaciers in other parts of the continent and reduce global sea level rise." 

So, who to believe, you or NASA?

No it is not happening, Arctic ice has shrunk a bit, but this has happened before as records from whaling ships show, 
Meanwhile the Antarctic is growing. 
Anyway there have been periods in the past when Earth had no ice-caps and life still went on, in fact it thrived.