The greenosphere is in a frenzy about new polls showing that Americans neither understand nor particularly care about climate change—one from Rasmussen, another from Pew. A few semi-coherent thoughts:
Lots of folks seem to be having exactly the wrong reaction to this, which is that enviros need to try even harder to "raise awareness" of climate change and "educate the public" on climate science. Ugh.
The public is already "aware" of climate change. It’s friggin’ everywhere. It gets as much as or more publicity than virtually any other sociopolitical problem outside the economic downturn. Pop stars are writing songs about it fer chrissake. Awareness: check.
As for educating the public on the science, guess what? The public’s kinda ignorant about science. Have you seen the polls on evolution, or ghosts, or aliens, or telepathy? They’re horrifying. There’s a lot to know these days, and most people don’t know most of it. Changing that is impossible a long-term undertaking we don’t have time to wait on.
So, if people are already "aware," and a renaissance of widespread scientific literacy is unlikely in the next few years, what direction to take from these polls?
You have to start with plausible answers for why so many people refuse to believe in or prioritize climate change.
Start with this question: why don’t you ever see polls on public knowledge of the Standard Model in physics or valence bond theory in chemistry? Because frankly, who cares if the public understands those things. They need to understand science insofar as science impinges on their lives and calls on them to make decisions.
When science does impinge, the public responds based on two basic questions, both of which are just as much emotional as rational:
- Is this a problem that threatens me/my family/my tribe? Is there an imminent threat? Is it an emergency?
- Do the proposed solutions to the problem threaten me/my family/my tribe? Am I going to get screwed?
Consider evolution. It poses no real threat in and of itself, but accepting its validity threatens, or seems to threaten, some individuals’ social, emotional, and spiritual commitments, the beliefs by which they conceive of their place in the world and their meaning in it. When that happens, it’s almost always the science that goes, not the commitments. Only safety and survival are prioritized higher. So the public—at least around half the public—rejects evolution.
It’s a similar deal with climate change. Right now, to a large chunk of the public, the answer to the first question is no and the answer to the second is yes. They don’t believe climate change is an imminent threat and they do believe that proposed solutions threaten their security. So they reject the facts and put it out of their mind. It’s not a scientific way of thinking, but it is human nature.
Those two answers are what need changing, and they won’t be changed by scientific reports and data. Two things seem called for:
- Greens, politicians, and other communicators need to get serious about calling climate change the impending catastrophe it is, with serious, dire consequences for people now living, certainly for their children. That means risking being called "hysterics" by conservatives and their dupes in the media.
- The same folks need to get better at showing the public the opportunities and benefits of action. It’s about expanding the winner’s circle and making damn sure everybody in it, or potentially in it, knows about it.
That’s what will change the poll results. It pains many geeky progressives to realize it, but science is largely beside the point here. It informs the strategy, but it is not itself a strategy. The relevant realm is sociopolitical, and so the strategy must be values-based, rhetorically savvy, and emotionally resonant. Repeating the facts won’t help.
Carl Levin (D-Mich.) [UPDATED]
Climate psychology in cartoons: clues for solving the messaging mystery
Is the U.S. Chamber changing its tune on climate, or just its tone?
Comments
View as Flat
ce1907 Posted 11:57 pm
26 Jan 2009
showing that is the most important.
Various things must be done, of course, as you know. However, I suspect that smart grid meters are the whiz bang object that people will experience directly and get the idea that practical change is possible -- or not.
Based upon flipping through internet sites (including DOE and industry newsletters), it seems to me that computer software standards are the key to progress. Cannot buy stuff until there are standards.
I also suspect that standards can be done right, or wrong, with enormous consequences.
Wish we had a computer science contributor at Grist who could birddog the action (inaction).
ps. NIST report on computer standards for smart grid was due in December (2007 Energy Bill requirement). Still no report. And, frankly, I do not have high hopes for NIST process.
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ids Posted 12:48 am
27 Jan 2009
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biodiversivist Posted 2:25 am
27 Jan 2009
If America can be convinced that giant armored gas guzzling station wagons are coveted status symbols by calling them Sport Utility Vehicles in ads, then we should be able to make super high mileage cars and zero energy homes cool also. Fighting global warming would be the sought after side effect.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 3:03 am
27 Jan 2009
How to brand exponential GHG climate emergency and tie it to the exponential manner in which human change can ocurr, like political revolution or new product market penetration, that's the challenge.
Exponential climate emergency, ever increasing in velocity due to positive feedback from ice melt/ increased solar absorption and ice melt/methane release from tundra and undersea methane hydrate, must be illustrated clearly enough to come across the cognitive boundary layer.
That will produce alarm. But that alarm will turn to despair, quietism, and immersion in hedonism... unless...
It can be explained how products, like plugin hybrids for instance, can take over markets at an ever increasing velocity. The exponential change to plugin hybrids (and other renewable energy and conservation devices) overtaking exponential climate change.
Take classic products like the Frisbee or the Bic lighter as an example. They start with the first sale then as the word gets around, sales take off like a forest fire. A forest fire is a good way to explain exponential growth too.
Or how about the internet technology boom? There's another exponential growth example.
But how do you brand this together? Exponential climate change danger and exponential renewable energy product growth that could counter it?
How did the Sherman tank overcome the German Tiger tank in WW II? Mass production. It took 10 Shermans to each Tiger to win. German industry built one tank at a time.
US industry ramped up tank production exponentially with mass production on multiple factory assembley lines.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Jon Rynn Posted 4:04 am
27 Jan 2009
The problem is that the scientific community is by nature very conservative about making very big, "wild" claims. However, there is a lot of scientific evidence that if the tundra, and especially the ocean clathrates evaporate, then we could be headed for a permian extinction event, in other words, almost everything will die.
But that has to be coupled with a believable strategy to prevent this. Ideally everybody would enjoy the process of getting from here to there. Since some of it may involve cultural changes (maybe less cars, for exammple), that won't necessarily be easy, but we should be trying to paint pretty pictures of a carbon-free world, nonetheless.
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GreenMom Posted 5:01 am
27 Jan 2009
[the problem is dire] Ads and sound bites associating climate change with stronger storms (photos of Katrina), sea level rise (photos of floods), and drought (photos of wildfires eating houses).
[solutions/opportunities] Sound bites like energy independence, energy efficiency = green jobs, green jobs = jobs that can't be outsourced.
Photo juxtaposition: mountaintop removal vs. wind farms, belching factories vs. solar arrays.
You want to educate? Educate the kids. Put ads on Disney and Nick showing kids making the point that electric cars/hybrids are cool, SUVs are SO last year (I'm not sure how to make that ad, but I'm sure it can be done).
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sindark Posted 5:52 am
27 Jan 2009
Rather than trying to raise awareness and encourage voluntary changes in behaviour we should simply build a society with stable greenhouse gas emissions and do so in a way that requires little input and effort from almost everyone.
Critically, that society should emerge and exist without the need for most people in it to think about climate change at all. For the most part, it should occur by means of changes that aren't particularly noticed by those not paying attention. In places where change is noticed, it is because the legal and economic structure of society now requires people to behave differently, without ever asking them to consider more than their own short term interests.
To do this, you need to make two big changes: decarbonize our infrastructure and price carbon. Both can be done at such a high level that the awareness of the average memeber of society about the science of climate change is unimportant. What is necessary (and very tricky) is finding the high-level political will to do either thing.
a sibilant intake of breath
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GreenMom Posted 6:10 am
27 Jan 2009
The main point of raising awareness is NOT to encourage individual voluntary changes.
The main point of raising awareness is to bring about widespread high-level political will to decarbonize.
When the people push, the high-level will moves.
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Ted Clayton Posted 7:58 am
27 Jan 2009
The general population continuously contemplates a surfeit of hellish potential destruction.
Nuclear war, bird flu, Big Brother by Patriot Act and Internet. Then mom & dad get cancer and are eaten alive from the inside out by an alien being. And we're next.
This is the competition. The message that a recent warm spell was caused by the breath of our civilization and it (and we) must now undergo radical experimental surgery to avoid eco-disaster falls on the ears of folks who've heard worst, and seen more-convincing and more-fearsome monsters.
It may well be that declining public acceptance of the Anthropogenic Global Warming message will continue and even accelerate. The priority challenge for AGW appears not to be to alter public perception, but to 'fall back & regroup', to preserve their own internal cohesion. Otherwise, the next thing to decline may be the movement itself.
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sindark Posted 1:13 am
28 Jan 2009
a sibilant intake of breath
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:35 am
28 Jan 2009
-David Ahlport
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Ted Clayton Posted 3:07 am
28 Jan 2009
I continue to be amazed at the willingness to put so many of AGW's eggs in so untested & tentative a basket as the Arctic Ocean icecap.
Certainly, the Icecap serves well as a media-genic and non-technical climate-proxy by which to focus the public's attention on Global Warming. However ...
The Arctic Ocean and (especially) it's icecap are a can of worms and a flush of butterflies. This is a flighty, erratic, chaotic system: If it was a gaming table in Vegas, the crowd would be standing well back.
And most astounding of all - the icecap has already started showing rather plain signs of recovery. Yet you, Al Gore and others continue to point to a cooling & regrowing icecap, saying; "Watch it melt!".
I'll take you up on it. Let's indeed watch the Arctic Icecap closely through the summer of 2009. We will surely have lots of company.
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GreyFlcn Posted 3:34 am
28 Jan 2009
What are you talking about?
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/09/you_cant_make_thi ...
Yeah 2008 was cold, but that's hardly a "trend".
http://greyfalcon.net/lanina
-David Ahlport
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Hal 9000 Posted 3:56 am
28 Jan 2009
Unfortunately, given the rate and magnitude of cultural change needed to address the climate crisis, those with a high receptivity to change represent a relatively small minority of our population. Because we are a democracy and because we have entrenched and powerful special interests that benefit from the status quo, rapid and fundamental societal change is difficult. It seems imperative to develop appropriate messaging to reach and motivate those who are moderately receptive to change because, absent a very near-term catastrophe clearly tied to climate chaos, we need political support from these folks to achieve needed cultural change.
Expanding the winner's circle so that the moderately receptive to change see themselves comfortably within it seems like a good strategy. I'm not sure whether emphasizing impending catastrophe is as helpful. The middle group certainly needs to feel that change is necessary and urgent, but messaging to this group should be empowering and not cause it to despair. Environmental groups with resources should find the sweet spot and devote their messaging to this group specifically. Perhaps tying messages of looming disaster to moral concepts such as intergenerational equity along with political empowerment (simple and practical ways to organize and become involved in ways that make a difference) will work.
Finally, as the run of the mill blogosphere comments from delayers and deniers regularly indicate, those who are inherently unreceptive to change are a lost cause. More science is clearly not the answer. We waste a lot of time and energy in the false hope that the latest peer-reviewed science or the most brilliantly conceived policy paper will win these folks over. Instead, their views need to be labeled as representing special interests or a small minority of the policy and scientific communities and they need to be marginalized politically. As Jared Diamond has shown, some cultures will choose societal collapse over change. The unreceptive to change folks favor collapse. We cannot let the small minority of the population they represent delay or prevent needed change until it is too late.
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Ted Clayton Posted 4:21 am
28 Jan 2009
The Soviet Union and Pravda used this trick for years, going to athletic meets with only two national entries, then when they got trounced loudly proclaiming "Hurrah! We came in second!". They were whupped, and came in last.
"Second greatest loss" of ice coverage means the ice is on the march.
Because the winter of 2008-9 is proving to be quite cold, it is likely that the summer of 2009 will see so much ice remaining on the Arctic that the spin-effort will be dropped. "Whoa, look at all the new ice!"
Could it be a passing bit of climate-'noise', and not an indication of a cold-trend? Yes, you're right, that could be. But that would only underscores my point that placing bets on the Arctic icecap is not a wise gambling-move.
Because of the dramatic down-shift events in Solar behavior & activity, I think it behooves any prognosticator to hedge their bet, on the chance of a sustained declining temperature regime in the far north - and elsewhere.
David, my point isn't that the Icecap isn't interesting & important - it is! - but that going out on a limb to make predictions about what it will do is very risky.
The Arctic has been embarrassing (not to say, killing) people for generations. The difficulty of predicting it is pretty dramatic. And folks are today saying the ice will melt (Al Gore - ice-free summers in 5 years!), when objectively it looks more likely to grow & thicken.
If the Arctic Ocean is white & hard come summer '09, the AGW message will take an important public relations hit, and no amount of journal references will stop the loss of credibility.
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FadingFast Posted 7:08 am
17 Feb 2009
It is only too fitting that the climate change religion is led by Al Gore, a former theology major. And it is a great irony that on the 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species", the insights of Darwin and Wallace - confirmed in all aspects of biology - are still labeled dismissively as a theory; whereas Gorism, at about 20 years of age, is accepted so widely and uncritically.
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J4zonian Posted 5:35 am
18 Feb 2009
The relevant realm is not the sociopolitical; it is the psychological. You give 2 questions that the public supposedly asks, about real threats, then prove that those questions are largely irrelevant to the public with the example of evolution--no threat at all, but a question of authority.
Science is a democratic institution; relatively, no respecter of father-figures, while religion and right wing politics call upon multiple levels of fathers--god, priest/minister, business-warlord, and abusive president (the only kind many people are familiar with and will therefore follow). There is also deep anti-intellectualism in the US, maybe caused by manipulation of the very young by parents, etc. So it is easy for demagogic right wing politicians to turn people away from science. And if some of that sounds illogical, it is. We're dealing with the irrational unconscious here, and with ignorance of psychology, which would explain such things--if there were room here.
This as well as biodiversist's comment ("If America can be convinced that giant armored gas guzzling station wagons are coveted status symbols by calling them Sport Utility Vehicles in ads, then we should be able to make super high mileage cars and zero energy homes cool also.") are good illustrations that ignorance of psychology is what is holding us back. Giant gas-guzzling SUVs appeal because they compensate for lack of feelings of personal power and safety. So far, despite the facts, there is little indication that the same people can be made to feel powerful with high mileage cars and zero energy homes--although many of the rest of us respond differently. Rationality has no power here; we are dealing with the unconscious desires of an immature and traumatized people and society.
Unless we use psychologically sound strategies, we will fail to reach about half the people. Traumatizing people more by saying over and over how bad and dangerous things are only drives conservative-oriented people farther into the arms of the strict father, who tells them to put their faith in the faith-based (faith in the father) rather than fact-based, realm. Meanwhile, alarmism drives liberals into despair and inaction, which gives us what we've had for 40 years: a frightened, disorganized and paralyzed left and a united, fascist-like right.
There are other factors--rage on both sides, eg. and it's much more complex than I've said here, but until we address this issue we will not be nearly as effective as we could be.
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Ted Clayton Posted 10:20 am
18 Feb 2009
Science isn't into democracy. Truth & understanding don't come out of a ballot-box. Authority in science is a matter of demonstrated superior science. The assertion that science is democratic of course resembles the current "consensus" talking-point. Consensus can come into play, on the pragmatic level, but like democracy it isn't at the core of what science is, or how it comes to produce what it contributes. No, science & knowledge-discovery are tyrannies of meritocracy.
While many religious people are conservatives, it should not be much of a reminder to say that actually, a large swath of the religious community are indeed liberal-progressive ... who shun Fundamentalists, Evangelists, and other objects of their embarrassment ... who are in fact your allies. Tarring 'em all with the same brush is yet another example of self-inflicted damage.
At the same time, many conservatives are only trivially into religion. Religion simply lacks a meaningful driving force in the lives of many garden-variety conservative folks ... on par with say their commitment to Budweiser. (Not that they won't trade black eyes & bloody noses over a Bud...)
Trying to explain Religion & Conservatism in terms of one another is not going to help opponents of those subcultures prevail, because it involves telling oneself too many fairy tales about their opponent. The importance of knowing the enemy - for real, not as straw-men or whipping-boys - is too key to success.
Speaking of your fascist-like right, you and all like-minded folks should know that the perceived fascist-like behavior of environmentalists, lefties, etc, is really what is losing you status with the pubic, overall.
The spotted owl forestry shutdown, for example, is seen as a contrived ploy, a deliberate distortion of science, intended mainly to harm the industries & communities of the Pacific Northwest. And indeed, 20 years economic devastation in the region have been of no noticeable benefit to the owl.
Likewise, the 'science' in having polar bears declared endangered, when its population is in fact robust & vigorous, hurts the environmental movement, stands as evidence to 10s of millions of citizen ... "Yeah, check it out - words are nothing but tools to get what they want - use 'em any that works, no matter how twisted!"
The Green movement gained a few scraps of tactical ground with the polar bear, but at the cost of damage to their strategic position. (Or as my Aunt puts it, "Feed 'em all the rope they want...")
I do think, though I preface myself with criticisms, that your slant & interpretation on things enviro & leftist ranks as among the more real & reliable that we're likely to run into.
I like to see one Party in the White House, and the other in Congress. It works slower that way, but the results are less nerve-wracking, less extreme. It's the same thing on the popular level. It's best when both the Liberal views and the Conservative views are well-enough armed & forceful that they each command a healthy respect from the other.
However, my sense is that the absolute insistence that they know for sure what is really & truly going to happen with the climate, has genuinely run the liberal-enviro community out onto a treacherous social limb. If climate-events now deviate for their doom-dealing predictions, their precipitous decline could lead to the kind of power imbalance that I don't like to see in the White House & Congress - on the popular level.
It is not in our collective interest that those who are committed to the Anthropogenic Global Warming scenario overplay their social hand, and then end up severely discredited & diminished in the mind of the public - and themselves.
But I must say, they appear to be setting themselves up for exactly that.
While I'll contest & argue points with you, I agree that the overall reality of what is going on in the climate-movement is for sure highly - and unstably - 'Freudian'.
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J4zonian Posted 3:09 pm
18 Feb 2009
The work of George Lakoff (with some psychological refinements) is relevant--the conservative view is `people are bad' and alone, the world is dangerous and we need to be disciplined and protected by daddy. The liberal view is `people are good' or with potential to be good if nurtured (especially physio-psychologically), which leads to the belief in deep connection to others, including non-humans. Of course it's more complicated and people and all institutions are mixes and have other things going on. Religious liberals tend to be involved with democratic religions, where each person is, to various degrees depending on religion, his/her own authority in relation to god. Not an either/or but a continuum, with the other end putting all authority in a book, person or hierarchy as the interpreter of god. Those conservatives who are not religious believers tend to project the same authority into business, government...or even a hierarchical "science".
Science is neither democracy nor consensus, since consensus is a specific agreement on a particular way to make decisions in a defined group, and good science never does come to one agreed-on truth. ("As soon as you say `I understand' you cut yourself off from understanding."--Frank Herbert) Science depends on freedom of speech--allowing all views into the public forum--which it does imperfectly, obviously. To the extent that it is `democratic' and not hierarchical and father-oriented it is still science and not `religion', to use the term very broadly.
Yes, out of the differences come disagreements on what freedom is, and how we should rule; the perceived fascist-like behavior of the left is the following of science, reason and connection, while conservatives currently see that as an encroachment on what they see as their individuality (and what I think of as their maladaptive aloneness--an attachment disorder from childhood. And again--way, way more complicated than this can say. Issues and positions shift and meld and reverse in quite bizarre ways. Just look at how much of their otherwise absent compassion for children some conservatives project into fetuses, while many liberals don't. Contradictions for both, but perfectly consistent with the complexities of psychology. Everybody splits. Everybody responds to their unconscious desires. Polar bear numbers may or may not reflect immediate short-term danger of extinction but their position near the North Pole makes them vulnerable, and liberals' concern for them is a 1. reflection of connection to them, 2. projection into cute cuddly things, and 3. projected fear for ourselves--deserved fear at that.
Of course one can never be sure of another's motives--we can hardly be sure of our own, at least until extensive self-investigation has been done. While we shouldn't be saying we are sure, since we're not, the more people understand climate science the more time pressure and direness they feel, and the more strident they become. Our own maladaptive neurosis. Which was my point about not causing despair...
Decades of economic devastation have been caused not by ecological protections (of ecosystems, not owls--another example of seeing things not as separate but in webs of connection); they've been caused by neoconservative policies valuing license over freedom--the unfettered allowance of accumulation, by a few supposedly-deserving people, of the interchangeable commodities money and power. They're the ways conservatives try to get relief from the fear, grief and rage they feel at being so alone.
Of course, that's only theory. I don't know for sure. Unfortunately, our lack of drive for money and power means we have a hard time getting our version of the truth out to the public, and even when we do it's, as we agree, the wrong message. Certainty is counterproductive; we need to say `if things go this way... this is what will happen...' not `this is what will happen'.
I worry about how little time we have left to save everything, with parties splitting power, sabotaging each other, lying and demagoging and deadlocking progress. For one thing, what happens if we're just successful enough to delay the most obvious, visible and memorable things we've predicted without actually stopping the process? It's a way to keep the debate going right up to the end.
I certainly don't mean to pathologize conservatives and apologize for liberals. We have our own pathologies. And until we heal ours, allowing us to help them heal theirs, we will continue to act out of our respective unconsciousness and cause the world continued pain and destruction.
PS: Not much of a Freud fan; more of a Jungianesque neo-Reichian.
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Pangolin Posted 4:47 pm
18 Feb 2009
Wind power will bring jobs to rural America and they can quit losing their smart kids to the cities. Those are paychecks spread all over vs. concentrated at the coal or nuclear plant. Paychecks that small towns desperately need to keep schools, clinics and stores open. Services that will have to stay open if young families are going to enter farming. The average farmer in the US is over 50.
Ground-loop heating and cooling can pay for itself in under ten years and probably less than that if you install block or district thermal sumps. It also can bring payroll dollars to your town instead of shipping gas or oil dollars out of the US. Payroll that will raise home values in your town. The first small town to do a full scale conversion will find themselves mysteriously flush with money that used to head to Canada of Mexico to pay for gas imports.
Just about the time these jobs thin out as the last wedges of easy installs are taken care of the early adapters will suddenly be flush as their equipment loans are paid off while houses and communities still have power, light and heat. By that time it would be nice if somebody had a demonstration personal rapid transit system up and running for a few years and we could build out ultra-light rail as an alternative to cars.
Coal, oil and natural gas are great ways to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few people. Of course, right now the world has a handful of billionaires and billions of underemployed people. The odds are that alternative energy is going to give you a job before the oil companies do. That job is likely to be someplace close to your home instead of on a patch of steel in the middle of an ocean.
Just offer people cash. They'll change right quick.
Put the Carbon Back
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Ted Clayton Posted 5:30 pm
18 Feb 2009
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