The psychology and sociology of the International Global Warming Debate

[Michaelangelica]

Monckton, Why??

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/jun/08/monckton-gift-climate-denial

[Michaelangelica]

For climate change 'sceptics', denialists, contrarians or what Barry Jones recently called 'confusionists'to be right about the science of climate change, an alternative reality must be both plausible and logical.

Not sure if this is a true 'given'

The argument appears to be: the vast majority of publishing climate scientists agree with the basic hypothesis of anthropogenic climate change, therefore it demonstrates that climate scientists are just 'following the pack', primarily because they want to keep their funding grants. Those scientists with views contrary to the consensus therefore cannot get funding or cannot be published in the peer-reviewed literature. This is where the narrative of this alternative reality becomes extremely illogical.

Given that climate research is mostly conducted by universities or research institutes funded out of the public purse, this means that in this alternative reality, governments right around the world, regardless of their ideology, have funded scientists for decades and, for reasons unknown, only to affirm anthropogenic climate change.

 

Yet, this bizarre alternative reality is what many in the Australian community are (implicitly) choosing to accept in escalating numbers when they dismiss the science of climate change. It is no real surprise that many people would not want to accept the existence of anthropogenic climate change. The full implications of the process we've set underway are daunting. Taking meaningful action on climate change will require an economic and energy revolution in societies who appear paralysed by the status quo.

 

For those with conservative political views, in an increasingly ideologically polarised debate, the prospect of action that requires some level of government intervention is fundamentally at odds with their neo-liberal views.

 

Yet it is time that we started to recognise this alternative reality for what it is – an elaborate, illogical and implausible work of fiction.

 

All well argued but Why is it happening?

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2778378.html

 

[Michaelangelica]

Science Under attack

Science Under Attack

http://www.bbc.co.uk...rammes/b00y4yql

Nobel Prize winner Sir Paul Nurse examines why science appears to be under attack, and why public trust in key scientific theories has been eroded - from the theory that man-made climate change is warming our planet, to the safety of GM food, or that HIV causes AIDS.

 

He interviews scientists and campaigners from both sides of the climate change debate, and travels to New York to meet Tony, who has HIV but doesn't believe that that the virus is responsible for AIDS.

 

This is a passionate defence of the importance of scientific evidence and the power of expetury.

 

Interesting comments here (bat 12:47

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/

In last night's Horizon: Science Under Attack (BBC2), Sir Paul Nurse, a Nobel-winning geneticist and president of the Royal Society, sought to understand and address the public's increasing lack of faith in science. He cited several areas of contention: global warming and genetically modified crops among them. The problem, he said, was "not just a clash of ideas, but whether the public actually trusts scientists". Suspicion of the scientific consensus is not necessarily a minority viewpoint (half of Americans believe climate change is exaggerated) or an expressly political one – people who hate GM crops are rarely on the same side of the left-right divide as people who think climate change is a myth.

 

In my own mind I tend to characterise this debate as "scientists v idiots"

 

http://www.guardian....r-attack-review

 

[Michaelangelica]

one of the greatest achievements of the CarbonKids project has been its success in engaging primary school students and teachers with science.<br style="line-height: 1.5em; ">

http://www.sciencealert.com.au/features/20111508-22500.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencealert-latestnews+%28ScienceAlert-Latest+Stories%29

[Michaelangelica]

This leads me to the subject of this piece: the mysterious rise of climate change denialism.

 

Every time an article concerning the climate crisis appears somewhere in the United States, the United Kingdom or Australia, an army of climate change denialists emerges. For those who believe there is indeed a crisis - that is to say for those who accept the conclusions of the scientists and the implications of what they are telling us for the future of the Earth - they express nothing but suspicion, anger and contempt.

 

The overwhelming majority of these people have not published in the field of climate science. Most, but not all, have no scientific education. And yet, somehow, they have come to believe that they understand better than the overwhelming majority of climate scientists - in the immortal words of one of the most consequential climate change denialists - that the greenhouse gas theory of global warming is "crap". Climate change denialists do not merely doubt the conclusions of the people who have studied and published in the field. They know that the climate scientists are wrong.

 

It would be comforting to believe that the denialist army is composed of fools. This is simply not the case. Many of the denialists are accomplished and educated people. It would also be comforting to think that they represent a small island of unreason in an ocean of rationality, like people opposed to immunisation. This also however is not true. In the United States, for example, a clear majority do not believe in human-induced global warming. Indeed only 1 per cent of Americans now consider it their country's most urgent problem.

 

How, then, is the existence of climate change denialism and indeed its increase in recent years to be explained? There seem to me five plausible hypotheses.

 

1. The first concerns the influence of vested economic interest. Throughout the Western world there are many massive corporations whose fortunes are based on the sale of fossil fuels - coal, oil etc. If effective action is taken across the globe to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, on the grounds that they are imperilling the planet, these corporations have a lot to lose. Contrarily if they can find means to create doubt in the public mind about climate change science and therefore of its implications for the economic future of their companies, they have a great deal to gain. Putting a relatively small amount of money into one or another group capable of producing and disseminating climate change denialist propaganda makes complete economic sense.

 

It does not even need to follow that the executives in the corporations who in the past funded this propaganda or who at present are still funding it - like Exxon-Mobil or the fossil fuel industry-based Koch brothers in the United States - are self-conscious cynics. Outright cynicism is probably less common than self-deceptive and self-serving rationalisation in matters of this kind. Nor is it the case that the loudest voices in the media preaching global warming denialism, like Rush Limbaugh in the United States and Andrew Bolt in Australia - who are influenced by the propaganda of the fossil fuel corporations and who then disseminate it - need to be paid for the services they provide. In general, these kind of ideological "true believers" simply play the role of the "useful idiots" of the fossil fuel corporations. The classic study of this phenomenon is Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway's Merchants of Doubt.

 

 

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3722126.html

 

 

[Michaelangelica]

An analysis of 36 years' worth of polling data indicates that confidence in science as an institution has steadily declined among Americans who consider themselves conservatives, while confidence levels have been at steadier levels for other ideological groups.

 

The study, published in the April issue of the American Sociological Review, provides fresh ammunition for those who complain that conservative views on issues such as climate change are at odds with the scientific consensus.

 

"You can see this distrust in science among conservatives reflected in the current Republican primary campaign,"

 

"Over the last several decades, there's been an effort among those who define themselves as conservatives to clearly identify what it means to be a conservative," he said. "For whatever reason, this appears to involve opposing science and universities, and what is perceived as the 'liberal culture.' So, self-identified conservatives seem to lump these groups together and rally around the notion that what makes 'us' conservatives is that we don't agree with 'them.'"

 

So what does this mean for the role of science in setting national policy? "In a political climate in which all sides do not share a basic trust in science, scientific evidence no longer is viewed as a politically neutral factor in judging whether a public policy is good or bad," Gauchat said. Heightened distrust could turn young people away from careers in science and engineering, and in the long run, that could hurt America's standing in a global economy that is becoming increasingly competitive on the technological front.

 

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/29/10911111-study-tracks-how-conservatives-lost-their-faith-in-science?fb_ref=.T3RdZ_AW86w.like&fb_source=home_oneline

 

 

[Michaelangelica]

But in studies that have asked who is sceptical about climate change and why, we find not a story about scientific ignorance, but a link betweensocial attitudes, cultural beliefs and climate change scepticism. Theevidence is starkest in the US , but similar patterns are found elsewhere too: older, white, conservative men tend to be more sceptical about climate change.

 

In a paper just published in the journal Climatic Change, my colleagues and I at Cardiff University asked what would happen when two groups of people - one group sceptical about climate change, the other group not - read the very same information about climate change in the form of newspaper editorials constructed especially for the experiment. We found that these two groups of people evaluated the same information in a very different way, attributing opposing judgments of persuasiveness and reliability to the editorials.

 

In social psychology, this phenomenon - "biased assimilation" - is well known, and no one is immune from it, so both sceptics and non-sceptics rated the editorials in line with their existing beliefs. The critical difference, of course, is that those who were not climate sceptics had the weight of empirical evidence on their side.

 

What this experiment illustrates, though, is that "belief" in climate change is very much what matters. Without belief in climate change, scientific evidence simply bounces off. And it is social views and cultural beliefs that predict climate change denial, not people's level of knowledge about climate science.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/30/belief-climate-change-scepticism

 

 

[HydrogenBond]

One psychological perspective that differs between liberals and conservative has to do with time scale perception. The conservative is all about long term time perception since it tends to perpetuate old traditions that have existed for centuries. The liberal are all about the here and now and shorter term time perception. This difference reflects how each look at the global warming data. The long time perception approach might go back to the last ice age and show we have been in global warming for over 100,000 years. The short term time perception will only use a small piece of that graph and ignore long term trends.

 

A good analogy is looking at the stock market. Conservative money managers think in terms of long term trends and therefore know the market goes through cycles. When the market goes down they say hold the course and it will return. Someone who is more about immediate gratification and short term planning is more concerned about what the market did today or yesterday. They look at the same graph but only focus on a smaller time scale piece.

 

From the POV of long term planning, if you look in terms of social policy, the short term approach has increased social costs. The goals look good in the short term, but as time goes on, unexpected long term consequences appear, which short term planning did not anticipate. Women's rights was good, but who expected so much child poverty.

 

It is interesting that only parts of America still have long term vision. While, Europe due to liberalism, socialism and atheism have narrowed their time perception. I would have assumed these older countries would still have longer time perception but maybe this is due to the European Union and its short term nature.

 

Short term time perception makes it easier to manipulate people, with the shorter it is the easier it is. This allows for emotional manipulation, which in the case of global warming we make use of fear of the unknown to get the short herd to stampede.

[Turtle]

One psychological perspective that differs between liberals and conservative has to do with time scale perception. The conservative is all about long term time perception since it tends to perpetuate old traditions that have existed for centuries. The liberal are all about the here and now and shorter term time perception. ...

Women's rights was good, but who expected so much child poverty.

...

 

your narrow-minded, unsupported, sexist, and otherwise divisive anti-science post has taken up right where you left off a year ago. it is against our rules -still- to not give supporting links and as unwelcome now as it was then. stop it or leave.

[joekgamer]

Reading your post, there were many parts where I noticed problems or had questions, and was hoping that you could clear some of these up.

 

 

One psychological perspective that differs between liberals and conservative has to do with time scale perception. The conservative is all about long term time perception since it tends to perpetuate old traditions that have existed for centuries. The liberal are all about the here and now and shorter term time perception. This difference reflects how each look at the global warming data. The long time perception approach might go back to the last ice age and show we have been in global warming for over 100,000 years. The short term time perception will only use a small piece of that graph and ignore long term trends.

 

1) This would be the exact opposite of the trend I have seen - "liberals" tend to agree with the consensus that global arming is indeed occurring, while "conservatives" tend not to. From what do you draw your conclusion in this regard?

2) I notice that you, for lack of a better word, "characterize" liberals as thinking only about the "here and now", and conservatives as thinking predominantly about the "long term". However, I am not quite sure what aspect of decision making you are referring to here, so could you provide some more examples of conservative/liberal differences and point out how this difference in "time perception", as you put it, affects the decision? This would be of great help in understanding exactly what you are referring to.

 

A good analogy is looking at the stock market. Conservative money managers think in terms of long term trends and therefore know the market goes through cycles. When the market goes down they say hold the course and it will return. Someone who is more about immediate gratification and short term planning is more concerned about what the market did today or yesterday. They look at the same graph but only focus on a smaller time scale piece.

 

Once again, I have not noticed this trend. Could you provide some data that supports it?

 

From the POV of long term planning, if you look in terms of social policy, the short term approach has increased social costs. The goals look good in the short term, but as time goes on, unexpected long term consequences appear, which short term planning did not anticipate. Women's rights was good, but who expected so much child poverty.

 

1) What are "social costs"?

2) From where do you draw this conclusion that the women's rights movement is causing child poverty?

3) Could you give more examples of these "unexpected long term consequences"?

4) You appear to be talking about "social decline" here (a common topic as of late), an issue that shows the fundamental ideological differences between liberalism and conservatism. Conservatives tend to want to "conserve" the status quo, often on the basis of tradition, while liberals tend to see little to no inherent value in tradition, instead preferring to constantly reevaluate old policies to see if a newer one may be more beneficial. You seem to then conclude that liberals therefore think in the short term compared to conservatives. Is this correct?

 

It is interesting that only parts of America still have long term vision. While, Europe due to liberalism, socialism and atheism have narrowed their time perception. I would have assumed these older countries would still have longer time perception but maybe this is due to the European Union and its short term nature.

 

1) I noticed that you appear to equate liberalism with "short-term decision making" (and appear to do the same with socialism) throughout this post, so I won't bring that up in this part, but I was wondering what the basis of your apparent conflation of atheism and the same was. Atheism is simply the lack of a belief in a deity. I was wondering what the logic you use to connect this to "short-term decision making" is.

2) What is this "short term nature" of the EU?

 

Short term time perception makes it easier to manipulate people, with the shorter it is the easier it is. This allows for emotional manipulation, which in the case of global warming we make use of fear of the unknown to get the short herd to stampede.

 

1) Do you have any support for the first main claim in this part ("Short term time perception makes it easier to manipulate people, with the shorter it is the easier it is.")? You do not present any, so the claim is unsupported. Thus, conclusions drawn from this claim are also unsupported, unless you introduce evidence via other claims. Could you post some evidence, then?

2) Your second main claim is that "in the case of global warming we make use of fear of the unknown to get the short herd to stampede". Could you provide the reasoning and evidence behind this conclusion? As it is, people are not likely to believe it without a logical and supported foundation, especially if it contradicts what they have personally observed.

[HydrogenBond]

I am sorry I did not go along with the emotional ambiance, and characterize anyone not with the agenda as having psychological problems. Why is there a problem having a rational discussion, where I throw a curveball? Is thinking counterproductive to propaganda?

 

Time perception, as I tried to describe, is the time scale at which one filters stimulus stemming from reality before acting. If one was living in the moment, they would react to stimulus without any need for thought. This is what an animal will do. If it feels good, do it, without extrapolation beyond the reaction. Next time you learn to get the buzz even more efficiently or quicker.

 

If you are thinking longer term, you will still be stimulated by the stimulus, but before reacting or acting, you would think about the impact of this reaction into the future. For example, if a group of students decided to run nude through the campus, the short term thinker would just strip and go (this is awesome, dude!) The longer term thinker would puase and try to think of the possible consequences of this impulsive action. It may be fine, but there is an inital inhibition as thought extrapolates this action to the future. (if we get caught, I might lose my scholarship).

 

If you compare Occupy Wallstreet to the Teaparty, the Teaparty is very tame in comparison. They will pull the permits and clean up after themselves since they don't want bad press in the future. The short term media will try to make a gum wrapper look like a dump site.

 

The occupiers, tend to reacact more real time, out of impulse, without the same regards for long term consequences. They can be slobs and break laws. They know there will have cover by the media. Global warming is preferred more the by the occupiers, where a short term fear buzz does not have any requirement of future thought of except appeasing their immmediate and linear fear. The teaparty has other longer term fears, such as government control and possible global economic depression.

 

If you look at republican and democratic polititans, corruption has less impact on the democrats, based on self policing. It has to do with long and short term perception. Long term perception can not forget as easy. Short term only has to wait until the ambiance changes and there there is selective memory. The democratic constituents forget and forgive them faster. The opposite is true of the republicans.

 

When they approved the health care bill, Nancy Peloci said you mush pass the bill to know what is inside. Short term thinking acts before it understands. Understanding will come with time when it is in the time grasp of the short term thinker.

 

We have Al Gore starting a business based on selling carbon credits. That means we produce the same carbon but Gore and others make billions. Long term can see this manipulation and how it is about the money and power. Short term only sees the polar bears.

 

One way to compromise is have accountability in science. If it turns out to be a short term mind game, scientists who spend resource have to pay it back or do public service until it is paid back. If you really believe in that future, this should be no problem.

 

If one is not allowed to act without accountability, this will change the game. The trick is a long term constraint to separate reason from emotional impulse.

Edited April 3, 2012 by HydrogenBond

[Michaelangelica]

What Is The Disinformation Campaign.

 

The sociological literature of the disinformation campaign describes this phenomenon as a counter-movement. (See, for example, McCright and Dunlap, 2000: 559) A counter-movement is a social movement that has formed in reaction to another movement. (McCright and Dunlap, 2000: 504.)

 

The climate change disinformation campaign can be understood to be a continuation of the counter-movements that arose among US political conservatives in reaction to the environmental, civil rights, women's rights, and anti-war movements that arose in the 1960's in the United States.

 

And so, the climate change disinformation campaign's methods and processes can be understood to be an extension of strategies that had already been developed among some, although not all, conservatives to counter the environmental movement that had developed in the late 1960s and 1970s around other environmental issues such as air and water pollution, safe disposal of waste and toxic substances, and protection of wetlands and endangered species.

 

 

The climate change disinformation movement can be understood to be comprised of many organizations and participants including conservative think tanks, front groups, Astroturf groups, conservative media, and individuals. This disinformation campaign, as we shall see, frequently uses the tactics discussed in this series to convince people and politicians that the science supporting climate change policies is flawed. The central claims of the climate change disinformation movement have been:

 

• There is no warming.

• Its not caused by humans.

• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions will cause more harm than good.

(McCright and Dunlap, 2010: 111)

 

To support these basic counter-claims, as we shall see, the climate denial machine frequently has made claims that mainstream climate scientists are corrupt or liars, descriptions of adverse climate change impacts are made by "alarmists," scientific journals that publish climate related research are biased against skeptics, and mainstream climate science is "junk" science. As we shall also see, the climate change disinformation machine also has made frequent ad hominem attacks on those who produce climate change science and sometimes has cyber-bullied both climate scientists and journalists.

 

The climate change disinformation campaign began in the 1980s

 

http://rockblogs.psu.edu/climate/

 

 

[sigurdV]

Whoa! This was a huge thread to read...

All I will do at the moment is applauding Michaelangelica

for patiently demonstrating the approach of Social Psychology.

[7DSUSYstrings]

The Psychology and Sociology of the International Global Warming Debate.

Climate Change Conversations - NYTimes.com

It seems to me something new is going on here.

 

I remember the old Science Fiction theme of a threat (meteor, contact, aliens etc) from outer-space and how this pulled all the nations of the world together-- to fight the threat, rather than each other.

Now we might need to revise that scenario. Fist there would be the Aliens are not Really Coming Group and The Aliens have Always Come Group . . .etc need I go on.

 

The debate has been politicised and/or hijacked by politicians

Timeline of Climate Change Science and Politics - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com

42 to 41: how Abbott squeaked in – Crikey

 

Some say that Internationally we have Armageddon Fatigue.

http://blogs.smh.com.au/executive-style/managementline/2009/11/23/climatechange1.html

Sick of being told how we're all killing the planet? - National - NZ Herald News

Others feel denialists have lost their way

ABC Unleashed: A letter to your father

 

A new development is the increasing polarisation of the debate.

Copenhagen climate summit: global warming 'caused by sun's radiation' - Telegraph

 

 

The recent rise of the net and its influence on opinion is also unique and worth looking at

Whatever you think, the psychology and sociology of this is fascinating, and something we should be researching.

 

 

It reminds me of an old Sci Fi novel called "Froomb" as in "Fluid's Running Out Of My Brakes." As I recall the opinions of the scientists who sent the guy as a probe into the afterlife was much different from the guy they sent. Likely a good start in resolving the opinions is to resolve the truth about what is really happening and the true prognosis. Once that is resolved it will be a matter of time before the myths are dissolved.

Edited April 19, 2012 by 7DSUSYstrings

[Michaelangelica]

never thought of it from this side but obviously relevant

 

Climate scientists have been consistently downplaying and underestimating the risks for three main reasons. First, their models tended to ignore the myriad amplifying carbon cycle feedbacks that we now know are kicking in (such as the defrosting tundra).

 

Second, they never imagined that the nations of the world would completely ignored their warnings, that we would knowingly choose catastrophe. So until recently they hardly ever seriously considered or modeled the do-nothing scenario, which is a tripling (820 ppm) or quadrupling (1100 ppm) of preindustrial levels of carbon dioxide over the next hundred years or so. In the last 2 or 3 years, however, the literature in this area has exploded and the picture it paints is not pretty (see “An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts: How We Know Inaction Is the Gravest Threat Humanity Faces“).

 

Third, as Blakemore (and others) have noted, the overwhelming majority of climate scientists are generally reticent and cautious in stating results — all the more so in this case out of the mistaken fear that an accurate diagnosis would somehow make action less likely. Yes, it’d be like a doctor telling a two-pack-a-day patient with early-stage emphysema that their cough is really not that big a deal, but would they please quit smoking anyway. We live in a world, however, where anyone who tries to explain what the science suggests is likely to happen if we keep doing nothing is attacked as an alarmist by conservatives, disinformers, and their enablers in the media.

 

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/07/478984/hug-the-monster-why-so-many-climate-scientists-have-stopped-downplaying-the-climate-threat/?mobile=nc

 

 

[Michaelangelica]

Corinne Podger: Joseph Reser and Robert Gifford are psychology professors on a mission. They're two of the authors of a landmark report on climate change by the American Psychological Association. The report looks at the psychological barriers that prevent many of us from backing the science or taking personal action.

 

And as the policy focus increasingly shifts from climate change prevention to how we might adapt to a warming world, Joseph Reser argues that psychologists have the expertise we'll need

 

 

Joseph Reser: We've just finished a very large survey in Australia and their understandings of climate change and natural disasters in Australia. You know if you ask people what is the most important environmental problem in the world then they'll list a number of environmental problems and climate change actually is very important. But if you ask people what are their everyday worries and concerns then climate change might go down to 19 on the list and that's just within one country. If you go to a number of different countries, their climate change phenomena has been covered and presented in different ways by the media and there's different cultural world views that may or may not make climate change an important issue.

 

And the reality is that we're talking about a global environmental problem which in psychology we might call an environmental stressor. It's not as identifiable even as radiation is, or terrorism, or cyclones, or a particular hazard. So if we ask people to rank order it with respect to other threats that are out there, it just isn't the same as the others. It's a background stressor; it's happening elsewhere in the world, if you look at the media images, polar bears on ice flows etc; and it may not be even happening for one hundred years or two hundred years.

 

 

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/climate-change-and-behavioural-change-what-will-it/3024716

 

 

[Michaelangelica]

I am really at a loss to explain this

http://www.independe...nge-denialists/

 

Scientists are frustrated at the growth of climate scepticism, but Ben Newell, a psychology professor at UNSW, is not surprised. His research into judgement and decision-making shows that facts and figures about global warming need to be tailored to fit with the way people process information and form opinions

 

Psychologists know that how humans interpret evidence is not related merely to its quality. People tend to substitute difficult questions with ones they find easier to answer. For instance, when asked to think about changes in the climate – which is a complex concept – people might instead think about changes in the weather – a familiar concept. "Who has not been confronted by 'it was chilly this summer - that global warming thing must be a myth'", say Newell and Pitman.

Another psychological phenomenon is biased samples of information, which can affect memory and judgment processes. For example, if the public reads or hears opinions from climate change sceptics about 50% of the time, then this could lead to a bias in the perception of the balance of evidence in the minds of the public, that is, they may think the science is only about 50% certain. Pitman and Newell suggest reminding people of the distinction in the debate between the climate science community and as presented by the media where, in the interest of balanced reporting, disproportionate coverage might be given to people who doubt the science.

 

 

Climate change arguments also become confused when they are anchored on irrelevant information, distorting peoples' judgments and magnitude estimations

 

The way information is "framed" to convey a particular message affects the way the public reacts to issues, note Pitman and Newell. Choosing the appropriate way to explain the science of global warming is difficult. It's hard for people to get emotional about increasing CO2 levels – the by-product of most human activities – when they can't see, hear or smell what's happening. If CO2 was opaque or smelled like methane, its levels would never have been allowed to increase to around 390 ppmv

 

the authors advise being careful to avoid emotional numbing or a "despair" response. People can only worry about a limited set of issues and overuse of common images may have the unintended consequence of leaving the audience overwhelmed. Thus, unwilling to take any action on something they feel helpless to change.

http://knowledge.asb.unsw.edu.au/article.cfm?articleId=1358 Edited July 25, 2012 by Michaelangelica