The psychology and sociology of the International Global Warming Debate

[Michaelangelica]

Hide the decline ? What's that?

[Eclipse Now]

A joke... I thought you would have heard, but this whole global warming thing is a farce because scientists said they were trying to 'hide the decline' in the climategate emails. Fortunately there have been dozens of conversations about it and Buffy posted the latest one clarifying exactly what the scientists meant when they said it. (It's about the decline in apparent temperatures from tree-rings, not any device to hide temperatures as recorded by instrumentation. If anything the irony is they were 'hiding the decline' in tree-ring discrepancies to make the picture clearer from actual instrumentation.

 

But it doesn't stop Fox News adding rants about "hiding the decline in global temperatures, which just goes to show the whole thing is a conspiracy..."

 

I just thought the phrase "hide the decline" was not just an example of reading out of context, but of a culture that average non-technical readers would not even understand even if they understood the words.

[Michaelangelica]

A few thouhghts-- denial avoidance and hope?

 

All the evidence of history is that we don't respond until we have a crisis and we soon have the global financial crisis and a whole range of different other examples of World War II and appeasement and so on. We'll respond when the crisis hits, so the very important issue is when the crisis hits.

 

If we're really honest with ourselves, did any of us actually think that this could continue on? I mean we really didn't believe , looking at this, I've had this conversation with people for five years now around the world, and so tell me how it's going to work, how are we going to evolve faster. 'No, no, we're going to collapse. It can't be sustained.' Right? So if you actually talk rationally to any well-educated person they say 'No, it's not going to work, we can't grow like that, it's obvious, you know? 1.2, 1.5, 3, Very Big Problem. It gets a lot worse, we collapse. And that's the way things work and we'll fall apart and we'll rebuild our civilisation some other time.' So that's how people think. No-one defends this any more in a rational way, and none of us actually thought it would happen that we could continue on this way. We just kind of hoped it wouldn't happen on our watch. We hoped it would happen some other time. And we didn't know how to fix it anyway because it was so big, and there were so many other issues to deal with, it was not like we don't have issues to deal with in our societies every day, it's just too big, so let's just hope it goes away. Well bad luck, it didn't go away, it's happening now, it's happening on our watch and therefore we're the ones who are in charge and therefore need to respond and work out what the response is going to be.,

 

We are going to see 1 to 2 metres of sea level rise; we're going to lose massive amounts of real estate, we're going to see hundreds of millions of refugees. We are going to see conflicts over water and resources, we are going to see a collapse of society, we're going to see wars over this issue, we're going to see a very ugly period of time. And we're going to have to work out how to deal with that. And that's very sad, it's just very sad. We're going to lose 50% of the biodiversity that's taken billions of years to evolve, right? And we're going to wipe it out in a couple of hundred years for the sake of nothing of any consequence or value, right?

So unbelievably arrogant, terribly despair-inducing, and just very sad. And I have spent quite some years thinking about this and being more than sad, being depressed about it, because it just seems so stupid and so futile and so hopeless, and we seem so stupid. So I have spent years struggling to be optimistic in the face of such lunacy and idiocy that we see around us every day because we knew it was coming, and yet we carried on regardless, as though well that's pretty hard to stop so we'll just go back to driving big cars. That is a real shame.

 

Paul Gilding: This is why. Because human ingenuity is absolutely extraordinary. And when we put our minds to it, we do incredible things. We are extraordinary as a species and we are able to transform situations and problems into solutions in amazingly quick time. But we don't do it until a crisis hits. So I would describe, if I were to summarise a couple of million years of evolution, we're slow, but we're not stupid. We are slow to respond, we deny, we avoid, we try and get distracted but in the end we're not stupid, and we can work out how to fix things, and we are going to fix this one. We're not going to fix it in time to save all the Pacific Islands, we're not going to prevent major conflicts, we're not going to prevent sea level rise from occurring, but we are going to fix it, because we're capable of fixing it, and everything in history says that we are capable of fixing it.

 

I think this crisis that's coming, I would think seeing its here now we don't see it yet, but we will see it. This crisis that's coming is going to trigger the biggest transformation in civilisation's history, and I don't mean in Western civilisation's history, I mean in the history of humanity as a species on earth. This is going to be fast and furious and incredibly exciting. It's going to happen soon in an economy very close to you, and you are going to see amazing things happen, and we're going to look back and say, 'That wasn't so hard. Why didn't we start it earlier?' That's another conversation. But we are going to look back and say 'That really was quite simple.'

 

Now I give you as an example - it's not a good example but it's the best example we've got. That is the Second World War. Denial, avoidance, the data was clear, very fateful of what was coming, 'No, it's not. No, it's not. No, it's not. Oh ****, yes it is, it's here.'

transcript

Background Briefing - 14 June 2009 - The great disruption

The great disruption

 

|Download Audio - 14062009

()

 

Paul Gilding has been an activist for sustainability for 35 years, working for NGOs, business and government. He explains why physics and biology have determined that our current model for economic growth is finished, and how the human race will face its biggest challenge ever.

podcast

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2009/06/bbg_20090614.mp3

[Eclipse Now]

That was one of my favourite talks, and pretty much sums up my view on overpopulation! Thanks for providing the link.

 

He basically says that because population growth demographics change so slowly our only hope is fixing the "T" in I=PAT.

 

Impact = Population times Affluence/consumption times Technology.

 

Now let's take I=PAT and imagine a few hypothetical scenarios. Imagine a world of 6.5 billion people, living an "Affluence" of about 1 unit of first world comfort, so that's 6.5 billion 'units' of Impact on the planet.

 

Now lets imagine the effects of Technology. Destructive technologies of today such as fossil fuel energy, not conserving water and soil and fisheries enough, not recycling all metals and resources efficiently enough, etc, would probably multiply the damage done... so for arguments sake only let us assume that today's technology doubles the damage of Population and Affluence/Consumption.

 

Then we end up with 13 billion units of environmental Impact! (Impact = 6.5 billion people * first world lifestyle * Technology of 2 = 13 billion units of environmental Impact).

 

 

 

 

 

But let's imagine the world in 20 or 30 years. Let's imagine a world of 9 billion people, living in a mostly post-fossil fuel society, with 'greener' agriculture, a few changes in habits, and more "Cradle to Cradle" technologies in manufacturing. Let's imagine that we've cleaned up our Technology to the point where it halves our Impact!

 

So 9 billion people * first world lifestyle * 0.5 clean tech = only 4.5 billion people!

 

That's pretty much what Paul Gilding assumes will have to happen.

[freeztar]

So 9 billion people * first world lifestyle * 0.5 clean tech = only 4.5 billion people!

 

first world lifestyle=1? :)

[Eclipse Now]

Just calling it 'something'. Maybe on that basis, the lifestyle of a Chinese peasant farmer might only rate 0.2 on an environmental impact assessment compared to a first world lifestyle. I'm not saying our "Affluence/Consumption" level is right or good, just that let's call it 'something' to illustrate the point of the other multipliers, Population and Technology. (Calling it '1 unit' makes for easy maths as well).

 

But thanks for asking as it helps clarify that I need to make this point on my blog if I use this sort of example.

[Michaelangelica]

Pies aceman is a rabid denialist writing in a local tabloid-The Telegraph (Is it true or did you read it in the Telegraph?)-- if you want to follow the whole argy bargy

Here I am just quoting some jaded reflection on the social psychology of universal action. We all seem to be floundering here. What a great PhD for some budding social-psychologist?

But Mr Akerman did triumphantly produce a different quotation by Sir John Houghton. He writes: "Yesterday I was forwarded an article published in The Sunday Telegraph (UK) on September 10, 1995, in which Houghton told writer Frances Welch: "If we want a good environmental policy in the future we'll have to have a disaster."

 

And Akerman concluded: "If The Independent…and the ABC had done some research they would have found the remark ascribed to Houghton which I was given was so little different to what was published 11 years earlier as to make their claims totally misplaced and devoid of anything but malice."

 

The Australian's Cut and Paste section, and innumerable bloggers and posters, seem to agree.

 

Well, I don't. For a start, Piers Akerman specifically said that Sir John Houghton's words appeared in a book. When you're writing a book, you can be expected to take a lot more care than when you're speaking off the cuff to a journalist.

 

Much more important, the Frances Welch quotation means something entirely different from the words Akerman wrongly attributed to Sir John.

 

In the original Welch article, she quotes Sir John Houghton as saying: "If we want a good environmental policy in the future we'll have to have a disaster. It's like safety on public transport. The only way humans will act is if there's been an accident."

 

Now that seems to me an entirely reasonable reflection on how human beings process unwelcome news. This is not a matter of "left" or "right". To take one example fervently espoused by many conservative columnists, many forestry experts felt, long before Black Saturday, that not enough was being done in the way of controlled burning in Victoria's forests. They were frustrated that no one would listen to them. They predicted that only a disastrous bush fire would bring the authorities to their senses.

ABC The Drum - Malice, misquotes and Media Watch

[Eclipse Now]

You might enjoy this.

Do climate sceptics and anti-nukes matter? or: How I learned to stop worrying and love energy economics « BraveNewClimate

 

It's by Adelaide Climateologist Dr Barry Brooks who is pushing Gen3 (then in a decade or so) Gen4 nuclear power as a solution. He says:

 

This is a Discussion Thread, because I really want your feedback. But first, some context.

 

By late 2008, I was pretty stressed about climate change. Working on the science of climate (and other anthropogenic) impacts on natural systems, as I do, I could foresee potentially insurmountable problems for biodiversity and human civilisation this century. A time of consequences. Things looked grim, unless there was a massive change in attitudes towards energy supply and resource sustainability. This was exemplified by my post on the Olduvai Theory and Paul Gilding’s short essay on “The Great Disruption”. I got really annoyed by ‘climate change sceptics’ because I felt they were undermining our collective will (and political capital) to take effective action, using mostly recycled, pseudo-scientific distractions.

 

Then, I started to study the energy problem in detail. It was a Damascene conversion, as I came to realise, via the analysis of the real-world numbers rather than hype or spin: (a) the inadequacy of renewable energy as a complete (or even majority) solution to achieving low-carbon future (…and therefore avoiding the worst of climate change impacts), and (:) the comprehensive value of nuclear energy in solving the energy and climate challenges the world now faces, in the race to supplant our dependence on fossil fuels.

 

At this point, mid- to late-2009, I got really annoyed with anti-nuclear protesters, because I felt that, through their outdated ideology and inexcusable hypocrisy, they were undermining the collective will (and political capital) needed to pursue a future in sustainable atomic energy. What galled me the most about this was that I felt I was now fighting a war on two simultaneous anti-science fronts — against trenchant ‘fossil fuels forever’ interests (who ironically understood the need for energy security and technological prosperity) on one side, and hardline ‘nuclearphobes’ (who ironically understood the need for action to avoid serious climate change) on the other.

 

Now though, I’m much more relaxed about it all. In short, I’ve learned to stop worrying about ’sceptics’ and ‘antis’ and love energy economics (the real-world outcome, not the academic discipline!). Let me explain briefly, prior to further elaboration in the comments section.

 

and then goes on to explain that he simply thinks energy prices will determine the outcome more successfully than any government policy, as peak oil, gas, and coal will soon kick in and ultimately change the market fundamentals forever.

 

Also: Even if we burnt ALL the economical oil, gas, and coal, we'd only hit 460ppm. Bad, but the end of civilisation? Maybe... if the other methane feedbacks etc are real bad. We've never done this and shouldn't take the risk if we are wise.

 

And while we might bump the CO2 up over the 400 mark, will we make it to 460 ppm when coal starts to cost 2 to 3 times the price because it has peaked?

 

It's interesting how little resource geology made it into the IPCC models. It's like they asked economists how much oil, gas, and coal the world would be needing by 2100, not the geologists and energy engineers that could tell them there is NO WAY we can go over 460ppm, it is simply impossible!

Audio here:

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/climatechange_media/ccqa_seminar6_1of3.mp3

Slide here:

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/climatechange/seminars/climateqanda/ccqa6_lardelli_web.pdf

 

Bad luck that the IPCC is out of date and we can't go to 450ppm anyway... as the new consensus is 350.org!

[Eclipse Now]

You might enjoy this.

Do climate sceptics and anti-nukes matter? or: How I learned to stop worrying and love energy economics « BraveNewClimate

 

It's by Adelaide Climateologist Dr Barry Brooks who is pushing Gen3 (then in a decade or so) Gen4 nuclear power as a solution. He says:

 

This is a Discussion Thread, because I really want your feedback. But first, some context.

 

By late 2008, I was pretty stressed about climate change. Working on the science of climate (and other anthropogenic) impacts on natural systems, as I do, I could foresee potentially insurmountable problems for biodiversity and human civilisation this century. A time of consequences. Things looked grim, unless there was a massive change in attitudes towards energy supply and resource sustainability. This was exemplified by my post on the Olduvai Theory and Paul Gilding’s short essay on “The Great Disruption”. I got really annoyed by ‘climate change sceptics’ because I felt they were undermining our collective will (and political capital) to take effective action, using mostly recycled, pseudo-scientific distractions.

 

Then, I started to study the energy problem in detail. It was a Damascene conversion, as I came to realise, via the analysis of the real-world numbers rather than hype or spin: (a) the inadequacy of renewable energy as a complete (or even majority) solution to achieving low-carbon future (…and therefore avoiding the worst of climate change impacts), and (:) the comprehensive value of nuclear energy in solving the energy and climate challenges the world now faces, in the race to supplant our dependence on fossil fuels.

 

At this point, mid- to late-2009, I got really annoyed with anti-nuclear protesters, because I felt that, through their outdated ideology and inexcusable hypocrisy, they were undermining the collective will (and political capital) needed to pursue a future in sustainable atomic energy. What galled me the most about this was that I felt I was now fighting a war on two simultaneous anti-science fronts — against trenchant ‘fossil fuels forever’ interests (who ironically understood the need for energy security and technological prosperity) on one side, and hardline ‘nuclearphobes’ (who ironically understood the need for action to avoid serious climate change) on the other.

 

Now though, I’m much more relaxed about it all. In short, I’ve learned to stop worrying about ’sceptics’ and ‘antis’ and love energy economics (the real-world outcome, not the academic discipline!). Let me explain briefly, prior to further elaboration in the comments section.

 

and then goes on to explain that he simply thinks energy prices will determine the outcome more successfully than any government policy, as peak oil, gas, and coal will soon kick in and ultimately change the market fundamentals forever.

 

Also: Even if we burnt ALL the economical oil, gas, and coal, we'd only hit 460ppm. Bad, but the end of civilisation? Maybe... if the other methane feedbacks etc are real bad. We've never done this and shouldn't take the risk if we are wise.

 

And while we might bump the CO2 up over the 400 mark, will we make it to 460 ppm when coal starts to cost 2 to 3 times the price because it has peaked?

 

It's interesting how little resource geology made it into the IPCC models. It's like they asked economists how much oil, gas, and coal the world would be needing by 2100, not the geologists and energy engineers that could tell them there is NO WAY we can go over 460ppm, it is simply impossible!

Audio here:

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/climatechange_media/ccqa_seminar6_1of3.mp3

Slide here:

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/climatechange/seminars/climateqanda/ccqa6_lardelli_web.pdf

 

Bad luck that the IPCC is out of date and we can't go to 450ppm anyway... as the new consensus is 350.org!

[Michaelangelica]

Mabee. We still have a lot of coal. The NSW Government just announced, this week, they would be building another coal fired power station!

 

I was interested to hear a little of the investigation/grilling CW scientists were being given in GB (the ones with the notorious emails).

I wondered is this a case of "shoot the messenger"?

It certainly sounded like it.

 

One thing this whole debate has revealed to me is the paucity of scientific knowledge & method even among journalists, science students and people who should know.

 

I was reading an article in Cosmos, the excellent Australian Science Magazine where there was an article on the language of science. The writer felt scientists were too naturally circumspect and hedging in an uncertain world. For example he wondered if re-naming "Darwin's Theory of " to "Darwin's Law of Natural Selection" ( like Boyle's Law etc) might make it harder to oppose. It is harder to scorn a 'theory' than a 'law'. I think he is right. Just semantics.

 

Interesting link. I find the comments more intersting than the article

This for EG:-

One of the things that emerges from this post is something that, in the years I worked as a an international consultant dealing with China and India and Asia generally, was quite common among westerners – a failure to understand the nature of decision making in these areas.

When I say our opinions are irrelevant I mean that the motivation to pursue a particular policy direction is not based on any global considerations but purely and simply on what is in the domestic interest.

What will motivate both India and China is any technology that is affordable and will enable them to increase their economic growth. But affordable is not merely defined by price – it is also determined by expertise – the simpler the technology the more attractive it becomes for they do not want a technology where they will remain dependent on the west.

[belovelife]

how about an attachment for coal power plants that produces carbon building materials from the exhaust gasse from tha plant, where you make high temp polimides and polmers by using the heat and gasses to react in a chemical chamber, sequestering the carbon, then attach them to every coal plant and greatly reduce the amount of global warming

[freeztar]

how about an attachment for coal power plants that produces carbon building materials from the exhaust gasse from tha plant, where you make high temp polimides and polmers by using the heat and gasses to react in a chemical chamber, sequestering the carbon, then attach them to every coal plant and greatly reduce the amount of global warming

 

They've already been doing something similar for many years. They spray a limestone slurry through the vapors which makes gypsum. They harvest the gypsum and sell it to drywall manufacturers.

[Michaelangelica]

This address more the communication problem that scientists are having.

Maybe it it touches on their psychological motivations and skill sets

 

AAAS forum - Public trust in science

Recent mistakes by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and controversy over emails has created doubt in the mind of the public about climate change research. But the overall message is unchallenged. So are scientists doing enough to clearly explain their results, and concerns. A panel of eminent scientists reflects on this and other issues at this AAAS forum.

AAAS forum - Public trust in science - Science Show - 6 March 2010

 

This also

 

6 March 2010

AAAS President 2010 Peter Agre

 

Should scientific leaders stop apologising and start defending research on climate? In this second Science Show from the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Diego, the scientific aristocracy of world boffinry comes out fighting. They include Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy; Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society; and James McCarthy, chairman of AAAS.

 

AAAS President Peter Agre comments on President Obama's consideration of science and acceptance of scientific advice. He says Americans are reading less and becoming ignorant of key issues and debates. This comes to play when politicians and the public need to consider issues based on science, and is exacerbated by a scientific illiterate media.

AAAS President 2010 Peter Agre - Science Show - 6 March 2010

[Michaelangelica]

I found that article I mentioned above, on line.

It is worth reading a few times

Some extracts:-

Turns out, the real culture war in science isn’t about science at all ¬ it’s about language. And to fight this war, we need to change the way we talk about scientific knowledge.

 

Scientists are already pondering this. Last summer, Australian-born physicist Helen Quinn sparked a lively debate with an essay arguing that scientists are too tentative when they discuss scientific knowledge. They’re an inherently cautious bunch, she points out. Even when they’re 99 per cent certain of a theory, they know there’s always the chance that a new discovery could overturn or modify it.

 

So when scientists talk about well-established bodies of knowledge – particularly in areas like evolution or relativity – they hedge their bets. They say they “believe” something to be true, as in, “We believe that the Jurassic period was characterised by humid tropical weather.”

 

This deliberately nuanced language gets horribly misunderstood and often twisted in public discourse.

. . .

It’s time to realise that we’re simply never going to school enough of the public in the precise scientific meaning of particular words. We’re never going to fully communicate what’s beautiful and noble about scientific caution and rigour. Public discourse is inevitably political, so we need to talk about science in a way that wins the political battle ¬ in no uncertain terms.

The certainty principle | COSMOS magazine

[CraigD]

It's just a trend I've noticed; that denialists mostly find [peer-reviewed] support from meteorologists or geologists, ...

This trend has been noted by various journalists of varying rigor, the most recent I’ve seen in this DiscoveryNews article, which is commentary on this Columbia Journalism Review article.

 

The statistic I find most startling in these articles is not that most anthropogenic global warming deniers are from disciplines other than climatology and atmospheric physics, especially television meteorologists (“weathercasters”), but that among these disciplines, most (76%) were either unconvinced or convinced of the falsehood of AGW, an extraordinary large fraction (29%) of them hold the most extreme AGW denying views, such as that the theory is not merely unsupported, but that “global warming is a scam” to fraudulently get money for climatologists and their schools and organizations.

... and it is most commonly from older members of those professions.

I’m not aware of a documented correlation between age and rejection of AGW, though some may exist as a statistical relic due to the average age of, for example, TV weathercasters vs. research scientists.

 

The demographic attribute most strongly correlation with acceptance of AGW, is, as best I can gather from these and other sources, educational level in a science. Paradoxically, however, efforts started in the 1950s by the American Meteorological Association to assure that TV weathercasters were better educated – the AMS “seal of approval” certification system – may have contributed to the spread of antiscientific attitudes among them, and through them, among the general public. From the as the CJR article:

But in my own conversations with skeptical meteorologists, I began to think that that earlier effort had helped create the problem in the first place. The AMS had succeeded in making many weathercasters into responsible authorities in their own wheelhouse, but somewhere along the way that narrow professional authority had been misconstrued as a sort of all-purpose scientific legitimacy.

[Michaelangelica]

« From Point of Inquiry: Andrew Revkin on Rush Limbaugh’s “Why Don’t You Just Go Kill Yourself” Moment

My EarthSky Podcast on America’s Scientific Illiteracy and Climate Change Dysfunctionality

submit to reddit . .

 

At the AAAS meeting in San Diego last month, I spoke with EarthSky’s Lindsay Patterson, and the resultant podcast just went up. You can listen here, or by playing the embedded audio below, and I’ve also pasted some transcribed sections below:

 

And now, the write-up:

 

Chris Mooney: The science has been coming in saying that global warming is real, human-caused, and it keeps getting stronger scientifically.

 

Chris Mooney is a journalist and the author of the 2009 book, Unscientific America. Mooney spoke about the reasons behind what he calls American inaction on climate change.

 

Chris Mooney: It’s a problem of politics plus media leading to inability to function on this issue. We’re a divided country and we handle science issues according to politicization and divisiveness, rather than according to what the science actually says.

 

Mooney pointed to the decline of print media, and the rise of political blogs. He believes good communication of science may now rest with scientists, themselves.

 

Chris Mooney: The scientific community is going to have to find new ways of getting that information out. Or else it may be the case that we can’t get society to act on the best scientific knowledge that we have. And that may be catastrophic.

 

He said that scientists have learned a powerful lesson about the need to communicate what they know with the public.

 

Chris Mooney: I think the scientific community is ready to change -in fundamental ways – how it engages with the public. That means one key part of the equation is going to be functioning better. Hopefully that will create a more scientific America, slowly.

 

In addition to his concern about the declining quality and quantity of vetted science news, Mooney talked about his belief that science media has suffered at the hands of a number of popular conservative blogs that he termed, ‘anti-science.’

 

Chris Mooney: It’s the kind of tactics being brought against science I haven’t seen before. It’s staggeringly frightening to watch how much of a revolt against science you can have in this country on an issue that’s politicized like that.

My EarthSky Podcast on America’s Scientific Illiteracy and Climate Change Dysfunctionality | The Intersection | Discover Magazine

[Michaelangelica]

Want the earth to be cooler? Unleash the psychologists.

According to Robert Gifford, a Professor of Psychology and Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, the profession needs to help scientists and policymakers overcome the psychological barriers to action on climate change - things like the public's limited understanding of the dangers of global warming, ideological reluctance, and mistrust of government.

 

He's not alone: it's a developing area of study. The American Psychological Association has a Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change. In a report last year, it too found psychologists should try to overcome our psychological barriers to saving the planet.

ABC The Drum Unleashed - Climate change: healthy debate not a <i>health</i> debate

pdf iconGifford, R. (in press). Psychology’s essential role in climate change. Canadian Psychology/psychologie canadienne.

No-one is disputing the electorate has misguided views about many public policy questions.

 

In his 2007 book The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, Bryan Caplan documented the four big economic biases - views held by the general public but rejected by economists who have spent years or decades studying them.

 

People tend to underestimate the value of labour-saving practices. They overlook the benefits of free trade. They believe the economy is always in decline, and they undervalue the social benefits of the voluntary interaction in the marketplace.

 

These beliefs account for much of the harmful demagoguery which surrounds economic debate.

The comments are the usual passe ones about CC

Except for

It is a poor reflection on the maturity of our society that we have failed, thus far, to conduct a sensible & constructive analysis of the problem & arrived at an agreed course of action.

Contrary to suggested in this article, there are many psychologists involved in the psychology behind economic decisions.

This line of study is called behavioural economics, and at this week's International Congress of Applied Psychology there are many talks on the matter. Central to this area is working out how people make economic choices.

You won't be alarmed to hear that the research is pretty clear; people are not good at making rational decisions, basing them on emotion, convenience or simply failing to choose anything. Sounds like some of the main things holding us back from effective climate policy, doesn't it?