Coby Beck has an entertaining and informative series of posts called "How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic," if you're into that sort of thing.
But let me hazard an assertion: Maybe it doesn't matter all that much how to convince a global warming skeptic. Why? Because there aren't that many.
Head over to ES&T and read about a series of surveys done in four countries -- the U.S., U.K., Sweden, and Japan -- on climate change and related subjects. The way it's written up is a bit opaque, to say the least, but there are a few clear results (FYI: I've also got a copy of the original paper, which is behind a subscription wall).
Acceptance that global warming is a real problem is above 90% in all four countries.
The U.S. does have a small, hard core of skeptics -- around 7%, compared to 3% max for other countries. But I don't see why that 7% should be the focus of so much attention.
Here's a more important finding:
Global warming was ranked as the one of the top two environmental problems facing their country by 55% in the Swedish survey and 49% in the British survey, far ahead of any other environmental problems. In the U.S., however, global warming was only ranked fifth at 21% after water pollution, ecosystem destruction, overpopulation, and toxic waste.
Now, one way to react to this might be to say: Sure, Americans accept that global warming is a problem, but they don't understand how bad a problem it is. So the solution is ... more facts!
Human beings are not rational creatures. We make decisions, set priorities, establish habits based on a whole range of factors: personal history, peer groups, identity, taste, serotonin levels, whatever.
My guess is that Americans place a lower priority on global warming than folks in other countries because in those other countries they've been having a very public dialogue about it, much of which has been about solutions, ways to address the problem. We can debate whether the solutions are adequate, but in those countries they're familiar with the push for wind power, emissions cuts, energy efficiency, and the rest. The problem has been absorbed into the civic dialogue and the public policy process. It's being digested.
In the U.S., it hasn't. It's still sort of hanging there, on the fringe. Everybody's aware of it, but few people are forthrightly discussing it. Most people, I suspect, view it with a kind of flat fatalism. It's the apocalypse. It's coming. We're screwed. But ... what? The only response that ever gets discussed is Kyoto, which has become just another token in the culture wars. It's widely agreed that Kyoto wouldn't solve shit -- but we're arguing about whether we should have adopted it anyway. Beyond that ... what?
It's not approachable. There's nothing for people to sink their hooks into, to get some sense of control. We haven't gotten our arms around it.
An issue like that, no matter how objectively important when rationally assessed, is just not going to be a priority. People are engaged by problems that they believe have solutions.
So I think greens, rather than obsessing endlessly about the few outright skeptics left, rather than obsessing about the latest scientific study, should start thinking more about how to integrate discussion of climate change into the civic and political spheres. That's a delicate task -- much "framing" will be involved -- but just repeating the facts won't accomplish it.
Comments
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rh Posted 12:09 am
24 Feb 2006
Great commentary Dave
I have been pondering this problem you pose in the last paragraph for a long time.
My sense is that it can't be the so-called greens that frame the discussion, at least not in the U.S.
Up til now, "greens" have been framing the discussion, and many on the right have managed to broadly paint "greens" with a liberal, leftist, communist, "Earth before people" paintbrush, and for all intents and purposes, that view seems to have stuck with the general public, at least on the surface.
For instance, take renewable energy. Greens have been flogging it since the '70's, and where have we gotten? 5% non-hydro renewable penetration? And if you ask a "green" why it hasn't improved? Well, as you said, "People need more facts!"
What's needed is a realization that climate change goes way beyond environment. This isn't an environmental problem, per se. The "environment" will be just fine, at least on a long enough timeline (if that timeline is on the scale of hundreds of thousands of years).
This is a human problem, and we as a society have to deal with it. So that means many more of society's players besides the "greens" need to take up the cause. We need doctors and public health specialists thinking about the health impacts, teachers and professors thinking about how to integrate this into their educational mission, business people thinking about the opportunities to profit on reducing emissions, planners thinking about mitigation, etc.
In short, like you say, we need the people that we in American society see as being solutions-oriented stepping up to lead on this. And unfortunately, my sense is that much of the public sees "greens" as obstructionist, not solutions-oriented.
Would love to hear responses.
RH
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EcoReason Posted 12:46 am
24 Feb 2006
Bravo
Dave - Great post! And I think you are exactly right, we are not talking about global warming in a useful public way in the United States. Two additions:
1. Nationalistic approaches are not the only means to solving the problem; in fact, if you shift your focus slightly to the various ngo and volunteer commitments underway, there is a lot to be hopeful for, and lots and lots of GREAT ideas (that we do need to be talking publicly about): Clean Air Cool Planet; NESCAUM; The Pew Center on Global Climate Change, and the dozens of local, county, and state municipalities that have made pledges like the one made by the City of Cambridge, to give a few examples.
But,
2. There is a tricky conceptual problem with climate change that I think causes ambivalence among the faithful. At the extreme, some of us believe that nature (Gaia) will take care of itself; Global warming can feel like an appropriate case in point. More moderately, global warming, better than almost any of our contemporary ecological issues, highlights the overwhelmingly human dimension of our ecological crisis. As the ongoing discussion about the Green Manifesto is showing, it's still a tough sell to encourage some environmentalists to care about humans and human problems.
Peace,
Kip
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odograph Posted 1:25 am
24 Feb 2006
IMO
The most skillful thing the GW opponents have done is bind up the idea that responses to GW must be large and devastating to the US economy.
In a way it's jujitsu, because some environmentalists (etc.) are ready to do very large and transforming changes.
Unfortunately that large-changes binding makes it a harder question ("global warming, yes or no?") for the population. It cannot slide under their doorstep as compact fluorescent lights and a more efficient heater.
I suspect that in Europe (etc.) GW response was made to appear more incremental, and without the single "trillion dollar price tag" that was thrown around here.
IMO, the way to make GW more acceptable to the population is to break the big price tag association, by naming the easy first steps. Do exactly what the foes do not want you to do ... slide it in under the door.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:02 am
24 Feb 2006
Good point Dave
Debating global climate change is a red herring.
Does anyone remember the old standby answer from the pro-corporatist faction? "More study".
We do not hear the president and his friends parroting that talking point anymore. ("more study! rwooark. more study! Bushie wanna cracker....)
The last global climate change skeptic I encountered was told to find someone else to debate it, in the face of melting ice caps and glaciers I have moved on to what is the best way to alleviate it.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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SMLowry Posted 4:13 am
24 Feb 2006
Re: deluge
You're right. Global warming is a human problem and here in the US it's being presented as an environmental problem. We're talking about the extinction of polar bears by the end of the century but not the extinction of humans. I mean really, by the end of the century we will have lost huge amounts of coastline, and numerous islands around the world. A friend of mine who used to work with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in DC and then went to the EPA, used to go on and on about all the toxics buried along the southeast coast how devastating it will be when the ocean rises and all these poisons are released into the ocean. The weather changes will be devastating. Where we grow food, where we live and how -- everything is up for grabs with the latest picture scientists and researchers painted for us on even the mainstream media over the past few days. And when 60 Minutes ended their segment on climate change this past Sunday with something like, "No matter what we do, there is no stopping it." my heart sank. This is not what people need to hear. What we need to hear are options. We need to know where our energy will make the most difference so we can act.We need to be empowered in the face of this, not led to believe that nothing we do matters so we might just as well continue with the status quo.
People know about climate change. What they don't know is what they can do about it. The US government isn't doing anything except threatening officials who dare to tell us the truth. Some states are beginning to respond but there isn't much public information. And at the community level, which is where we really need to be coming together to discuss the situation and create options and scenarios, very little is happening unless you live in a pretty progressive place.
My concerns with global warming are personal. I love the Earth in general and the beauty of the place where I live and grew up in particular. I live in Maine and I love the cold and snow (which we got precious little of this year -- a glimpse of the not-too-distant future). I love the seasons and my garden. I love the maple trees and fall foliage and maple syrup and making snow men. I grew up with these things. The thought that one day this place that I know and love will be utterly changed, much of it dead because species will not be able to adapt quickly enough to the changes to survive is devastating to me. I have shed numerous tears over it and I know I will again. I grieve for the loss of what we now have, what most people take for granted. It's hard to imagine the world of the future, but I think we need to because it's the only way we'll be spurred to take the kind of drastic action necessary. We need to describe climate change in human terms, create various scenarios based on current research and current situations, and humanize them. We need people to understand we're not just talking 100 years from now, that climate change is a process, that it's happening right now, faster than anyone could have guessed, and that living through these times (and not all of us will survive) will be hard and painful. Our gadgets and creature comforts will not save us -- they will not even work.
The Earth will survive. Life will survive. Perhaps humans will survive, who knows? But it will be a very different world, and we may be starting from scratch.
That said, I do believe we have the ability and power to change things for the better. The worst-case scenario doesn't have to come to be. It's just that there's no guarantee that it won't.
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sunflower Posted 6:54 am
24 Feb 2006
René Dubos, "Despair is a sin."
Amory Lovins --
When I give talks about energy, the audience already knows about the problems. That's not what they've come to hear. So I don't talk about problems, only solutions. But after a while, during the question period, someone in the back will get up and give a long riff about all the bad things that are happening--most of which are basically true. There's only one way I've found to deal with that. After this person calms down, I gently ask whether feeling that way makes him more effective.
As René Dubos, the famous biologist, once said, "Despair is a sin."
http://www.discover.com/issues/feb-06/features/energizer/
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