The psychology and sociology of the International Global Warming Debate

[Michaelangelica]

Rapture Ready: The Science of Self Delusion

 

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney?page=1

"A MAN WITH A CONVICTION is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point." So wrote the celebrated Stanford University psychologist Leon Festinger (PDF)

. . .

And it's not just that people twist or selectively read scientific evidence to support their preexisting views. According to research by Yale Law School professor Dan Kahan and his colleagues, people's deep-seated views about morality, and about the way society should be ordered, strongly predict whom they consider to be a legitimate scientific expert in the first place—and thus where they consider "scientific consensus" to lie on contested issues.

. . .

In other words, people rejected the validity of a scientific source because its conclusion contradicted their deeply held views—and thus the relative risks inherent in each scenario. A hierarchal individualist finds it difficult to believe that the things he prizes (commerce, industry, a man's freedom to possess a gun to defend his family) (PDF) could lead to outcomes deleterious to society. Whereas egalitarian communitarians tend to think that the free market causes harm, that patriarchal families mess up kids, and that people can't handle their guns. The study subjects weren't "anti-science"—not in their own minds, anyway. It's just that "science" was whatever they wanted it to be. "We've come to a misadventure, a bad situation where diverse citizens, who rely on diverse systems of cultural certification, are in conflict," says Kahan.

. . .

If you wanted to show how and why fact is ditched in favor of motivated reasoning, you could find no better test case than climate change. After all, it's an issue where you have highly technical information on one hand and very strong beliefs on the other. And sure enough, one key predictor of whether you accept the science of global warming is whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. The two groups have been growing more divided in their views about the topic, even as the science becomes more unequivocal.

 

So perhaps it should come as no surprise that more education doesn't budge Republican views. On the contrary: In a 2008 Pew survey, for instance, only 19 percent of college-educated Republicans agreed that the planet is warming due to human actions, versus 31 percent of non-college educated Republicans. In other words, a higher education correlated with an increased likelihood of denying the science on the issue. Meanwhile, among Democrats and independents, more education correlated with greater acceptance of the science.

 

. . .

 

It all raises the question: Do left and right differ in any meaningful way when it comes to biases in processing information, or are we all equally susceptible?

 

There are some clear differences. Science denial today is considerably more prominent on the political right—once you survey climate and related environmental issues, anti-evolutionism, attacks on reproductive health science by the Christian right, and stem-cell and biomedical matters. More tellingly, anti-vaccine positions are virtually nonexistent among Democratic officeholders today—whereas anti-climate-science views are becoming monolithic among Republican elected officials.

 

Some researchers have suggested that there are psychological differences between the left and the right that might impact responses to new information—that conservatives are more rigid and authoritarian, and liberals more tolerant of ambiguity. Psychologist John Jost of New York University has further argued that conservatives are "system justifiers": They engage in motivated reasoning to defend the status quo.

 

. . .

 

This theory is gaining traction in part because of Kahan's work at Yale. In one study, he and his colleagues packaged the basic science of climate change into fake newspaper articles bearing two very different headlines—"Scientific Panel Recommends Anti-Pollution Solution to Global Warming" and "Scientific Panel Recommends Nuclear Solution to Global Warming"—and then tested how citizens with different values responded. Sure enough, the latter framing made hierarchical individualists much more open to accepting the fact that humans are causing global warming. Kahan infers that the effect occurred because the science had been written into an alternative narrative that appealed to their pro-industry worldview.

 

. . .

 

You can follow the logic to its conclusion: Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via a business or religious leader, who can set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue. Doing so is, effectively, to signal a détente in what Kahan has called a "culture war of fact." In other words, paradoxically, you don't lead with the facts in order to convince. You lead with the values—so as to give the facts a fighting chance.

 

 

[athinker]

I suspect that the sociology of "AGW" stems from the 1960 era anti establishment movement. "Global Warming" is an umbrella term to garner many disperate anti establishment organizations under one political umbrella. The complementary conservative umbrella term started as "Family Values". Criticisms of "Family Values" goals undermining actual family strength caused them to rebrand it as "Values".

 

"Global Warming" has undergone a branding change too. Now it's "Climate Change". They (the benificiaries of the political umbrella, the left) can't make a conclusive or even reasonable case for global warming. The weather gets warm, the weather gets cool. It's up this year it's down the next. It's never the same from year to year, decade to decade, century to century. so they change the conversation from the science to the sociology. You are not scientific investigator. You are a denier.

 

The have the same rote responses as any political partisan. "I'm not going to argue about it" is the worst. The conservative equivalent is the rote answer to the question "What does 'Family Values' mean?". The rote answer is "If you don't know you never will."

 

When self absolution from defending positions or assertions is granted by rote responses you can know there is a problem with the foundation of the position or claim. Even if you don't know all the details of what has been argued about the position or claim. These rote answers are a degeneration of the argument due to weakness in the foundation. Scientific weakness in an argument is caused by lack of information, wrong interpretation of information or conflicting information. Socialy, hypocracy is a weakness of "Values".

 

So if the foundations are weak then why do they do it? Political power. Wheather you call it "The Sweetness and Light Party", "The NAZI Party", or "The Earth Church Party" they are all groups of people who try to do whatever they want. Or, due to the powers of leaders, whatever the leaders want. One of the things leaders want is to stay leaders. To stay leader they have to keep the group they lead intact under their leadership. There are numerous way to do this. Some are, shall we say, more convienient or expedient than others.

 

And that's why "The Sweetness and Light Party" gassed all those hundreds of millions of people.*

 

 

*Any resemblance to the real "Sweetness and Light Party" is entirely coincidental.

[Essay]

athinker, it seems you've thought of a lot of justifications....

===

 

Michaelangelica: Maybe "conservatives" are just less tolerant to grief. When one is compelled to change their worldview, then there is a loss that must be grieved.

 

If you think about the suggested consequences of rapid climate change or any sort of global change, and that "we" bear some extent of "responsibility" for that change and loss of future expectations, then that should logically evoke a strong grief response. I can see why one would fairly want to avoid that!

 

But life isn't fair, and the process of grieving that begins with shock and denial--and continues progressing through anger, dispair, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance/adjustment and hope--must be dealt with on certain occasions.

 

Certainly denial and anger are evident responses to global change scenarios. Bargaining may be the stage where people "interpret" the science, or in some other way justify the circumstances, so that their worldview remains largely intact. They also interpret the scientists and the various media interpretations of the science and scientists, such that: Either the science is wrong, or simply recycling and using curly lightbulbs will fix things, and life can continue on with no further need to grieve. That's a good bargain!

 

I've heard getting stuck in one or another phase of the grieving process is a common problem. I wonder if progress through those grieving stages is retarded more commonly among Republicans, or whether they just go shopping and altogether forget about it. Then, when they are once again confronted with the reality, they would need to again start the process over ...in denial.

 

http://www.apa.org/science/about/publications/climate-change.pdf

For example' date=' a news story in USA Today about several environmental presentations at APA 2008 in Boston (Jayson, 2009) drew 115 reader responses.

A content analysis of the comments showed that about 100 of the responses essentially denied that a problem existed; two typical explanations were that climate change is a problem invented by “scientists who are pursuing a phantom issue,” and that they are ignoring research that clearly shows that the problem is overestimated or does not exist.

...

As many as 75%-80% of U.S. respondents say that climate change is an important issue, yet they place it 20th out of 20 compared to other issues (~2009).

...suggest that people may deny the problem because it is a reminder of one’s mortality and [denial'] enhances efforts to validate one’s beliefs and efforts to bolster self-esteem (~2000).

 

http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/10/16/hamilton-3-stages-of-climate-change-grief-denial-hope-angry-acceptance/

These two interventions represent a watershed in the global warming debate because the authors are saying the previously unsayable' date=' expressing the fear of many scientists and environmentalists that it is too late to avert a catastrophic shift in the global climate.

...

Analysing the responses to the interventions reveals a great deal about how the most engaged members of the population are coping psychologically with the threat posed by climate change. A recent paper by Tim Kasser and myself develops a framework that can be usefully applied here. We identify three broad types of psychological response to the threat of a warming globe. {denial, maladaptive coping, and adaptive coping}

... {...adaptive coping:} "Those who repudiate maladaptive strategies, such as those I have described, fall into the third group. Adaptive coping strategies are deployed when the person accepts both the facts of climate change and the accompanying emotions. Emotion-focused coping entails expression of the feelings that follow acceptance of the full implications of global warming. Along with depression, some express anger: “Our politicians, spineless and ineffective as they are, have children. They know their children will die … Are they stupid? Insane?” But perhaps the most common emotion is despair." [/quote']That's adaptive?

 

http://www.globalchangeblog.com/2010/02/is-there-an-ecological-unconscious/

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31ecopsych-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=magazine

As our environment continues to change around us' date=' the question Albrecht would like answered is, how deeply are our minds suffering in return?

 

Albrecht’s philosophical attempt to trace a direct line between the health of the natural world and the health of the mind has a growing partner in a subfield of psychology. Last August, the American Psychological Association released a 230-page report titled “Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change.” News-media coverage of the report concentrated on the habits of human behavior and the habits of thought that contribute to global warming. [/quote']

 

p.s. This thread is about the "...International Global Warming Debate" but the debate seems to be settled internationally; it's just in the U.S. that the debate continues... with entrenched interests well-represented by lobbyists and championed more by one party and most political leaders... so that's why singling out one party seemed significant and relevant....

But thanks for this worthy post on how there are basically two types of people... those who cling... and those who don't.

 

Rapture Ready: The Science of Self Delusion

 

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney?page=1

"A MAN WITH A CONVICTION is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point." So wrote the celebrated Stanford University psychologist Leon Festinger (PDF)

. . .

And it's not just that people twist or selectively read scientific evidence to support their preexisting views. According to research by Yale Law School professor Dan Kahan and his colleagues, people's deep-seated views about morality, and about the way society should be ordered, strongly predict whom they consider to be a legitimate scientific expert in the first place—and thus where they consider "scientific consensus" to lie on contested issues.

. . .

In other words, people rejected the validity of a scientific source because its conclusion contradicted their deeply held views—and thus the relative risks inherent in each scenario. A hierarchal individualist finds it difficult to believe that the things he prizes (commerce, industry, a man's freedom to possess a gun to defend his family) (PDF) could lead to outcomes deleterious to society. Whereas egalitarian communitarians tend to think that the free market causes harm, that patriarchal families mess up kids, and that people can't handle their guns. The study subjects weren't "anti-science"—not in their own minds, anyway. It's just that "science" was whatever they wanted it to be. "We've come to a misadventure, a bad situation where diverse citizens, who rely on diverse systems of cultural certification, are in conflict," says Kahan.

. . .

If you wanted to show how and why fact is ditched in favor of motivated reasoning, you could find no better test case than climate change. After all, it's an issue where you have highly technical information on one hand and very strong beliefs on the other. And sure enough, one key predictor of whether you accept the science of global warming is whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. The two groups have been growing more divided in their views about the topic, even as the science becomes more unequivocal.

 

So perhaps it should come as no surprise that more education doesn't budge Republican views. On the contrary: In a 2008 Pew survey, for instance, only 19 percent of college-educated Republicans agreed that the planet is warming due to human actions, versus 31 percent of non-college educated Republicans. In other words, a higher education correlated with an increased likelihood of denying the science on the issue. Meanwhile, among Democrats and independents, more education correlated with greater acceptance of the science.

 

. . .

 

It all raises the question: Do left and right differ in any meaningful way when it comes to biases in processing information, or are we all equally susceptible?

 

There are some clear differences. Science denial today is considerably more prominent on the political right—once you survey climate and related environmental issues, anti-evolutionism, attacks on reproductive health science by the Christian right, and stem-cell and biomedical matters. More tellingly, anti-vaccine positions are virtually nonexistent among Democratic officeholders today—whereas anti-climate-science views are becoming monolithic among Republican elected officials.

 

Some researchers have suggested that there are psychological differences between the left and the right that might impact responses to new information—that conservatives are more rigid and authoritarian, and liberals more tolerant of ambiguity. Psychologist John Jost of New York University has further argued that conservatives are "system justifiers": They engage in motivated reasoning to defend the status quo.

 

. . .

 

This theory is gaining traction in part because of Kahan's work at Yale. In one study, he and his colleagues packaged the basic science of climate change into fake newspaper articles bearing two very different headlines—"Scientific Panel Recommends Anti-Pollution Solution to Global Warming" and "Scientific Panel Recommends Nuclear Solution to Global Warming"—and then tested how citizens with different values responded. Sure enough, the latter framing made hierarchical individualists much more open to accepting the fact that humans are causing global warming. Kahan infers that the effect occurred because the science had been written into an alternative narrative that appealed to their pro-industry worldview.

 

. . .

 

You can follow the logic to its conclusion: Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via a business or religious leader, who can set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue. Doing so is, effectively, to signal a détente in what Kahan has called a "culture war of fact." In other words, paradoxically, you don't lead with the facts in order to convince. You lead with the values—so as to give the facts a fighting chance.

 

 

[athinker]

So when someone asserts that someone is crazy and the "crazy person" denies it he is "in denial". In effect his denial is proof that he is crazy. All those psychobabble terms are abused in pop culture this way.

 

The "grief" that "deniers" suffer, the rote response so often claimed by "warming" proponents, is really the "warming" proponents' grief. Not only does the proponents' grief have all the phases of grief. It is the false grief of someone grieving over someone dying when that someone has not in fact died.

 

The "warming" proponents have a much more pathological "denial" pattern than the putative "deniers". Some pathologic patterns "warming" proponents have are; projection, paranoia, ignorance, hostility (as opposed to simple grieving anger), self loathing, narcisism, not to mention a plethora of delusional claims (I wouldn't call them thoughts as no one can read minds so can't know if the claimants really believe their claims), etc etc.

[Turtle]

So when someone asserts that someone is crazy and the "crazy person" denies it he is "in denial". In effect his denial is proof that he is crazy. All those psychobabble terms are abused in pop culture this way.

...

 

the sources michaelangelica gave are not pop-culture. if you intend to refute the studies, then it's incumbent on you to provide equally scientific study evidence in support. speculative personal impressions carry no scientfic value nor do they come in line with hypography's rules and intent/purpose.

[joekgamer]

"Global Warming" has undergone a branding change too. Now it's "Climate Change". They (the benificiaries of the political umbrella, the left) can't make a conclusive or even reasonable case for global warming. The weather gets warm, the weather gets cool. It's up this year it's down the next. It's never the same from year to year, decade to decade, century to century.

 

'Global Warming' was chosen because Earth is, in fact, warming. However, the change is not noticeable in day-to-day temperatures, because the increase is only a few degrees. This, however, means that temperatures and weather become more extreme, not that temperatures simply go up. This is because those degrees are not simply measures of heat, but of energy.

 

Because people thought that "Global Warming" meant that temperatures would simply go up (which is untrue), the term 'Climate Change' was adopted in an attempt to give a more accurate portrayal.

[athinker]

The CO2 based claims of "Global Warming" are unconvincing as even a cursory look at the data reads that the amount CO2 rises and falls over the year and the varience from year to year is in aproximately the same quantity as all the CO2 produced by petroleum, coal and natural gas during the entire 20th century. Since man's contribution to the CO2 content is undetectable against the natural "noise" and the contribution of man's CO2 to the global tempreture is likewise indetectable the "Climate Change" analogy to the "boiling pot" is made. As the tempreture differance between a peaceful pot of hot water and a turbulent pot of boiling water can be an indetectable differance so the argument is made that indetectable "tipping points" can exist. The differance between peaceful normal atmosphere and boiling "turbulent extreme" is not only less supported in research than tempreture data it is not even well defined. So any influence however small could push a unknown situation over the "tipping point". Classic fear mongering.

 

Good science is not a matter of opinion. Good science stands on its own evidence. Scientific "asaults" on anyone's claims are not evidence of "denial", insanity, ignorance or support for oil companies. Though, to be sure, some, but not all, who asail are in denial, insane, ignorant or supporters of oil companies. That holds for both sides in this case. In spades for some. The quality of anyone's case for their clames or questions asked of clames made in the case is a clear indicator of what type they are.

 

The oft made demand of the "warmists" is pure sophistry. "prove that it isn't".

 

To bad too. I believe in science. There are human caused problems and human produced solutions. I despise the stuff that passes for science in this case. It detracts from all the good science from where real problems are identified and solutions come.

[Turtle]

The CO2 based claims of "Global Warming" are unconvincing as even a cursory look at the data reads that the ...

 

please stick to the topic of the thread which is the psychology of debaters. we got a butt-load of threads on this denialist support crapola which you can find by searching our forum.

 

thnx.

[Michaelangelica]

Thanks Turtle, we are not here to debate GW.

Not sure about "grief" but will go along with a challenge to one's 'world view' although I am at a loss to see what "would view" is being threatened by scientists warning us about climate Change.

I can see Galileo Galilei may have had problems because it was seen that he was attacking the 'world view' and power of the church but this, , ,?

 

 

This has just happened in Oz.

It is totally unacceptable.

Death Threats Sent To Top Climate Scientists

http://www.australia...6a-958723ae5d64

[athinker]

So it's the "psychology" of the "deniers" that is up for pillory. The psychology and sociology of warmists is off the table.

 

Very revealing of the psychology of warmists. Of course also very revealing is how they respond with anger, sophistry and DENIAL!!

 

What does it reveal? Weakness, of course.

 

Too bad they're off the table. They are a facinating case.

[Essay]

So it's the "psychology" of the "deniers" that is up for pillory. The psychology and sociology of warmists is off the table.

 

Very revealing of the psychology of warmists. Of course also very revealing is how they respond with anger, sophistry and DENIAL!!

 

What does it reveal? Weakness, of course.

 

Too bad they're off the table. They are a facinating case.

Yes, what does make an alarmist tick?

But....

===

 

You seem to be contrasting the unsupported denial of science with the process of science itself, instead of contrasting denial with the alarmist's (your "warmists"?) calls for policy changes based upon projections about future changes.

Or are you just equating "warmists" with the scientists studying greenhouse gases?

 

This is similar to my "Thirdly" point, about your comments on "good science and bad science," from post:

http://scienceforums.com/topic/23445-co2-quantities/page__pid__307747#entry307747

...and thanks for the reminder....

 

But.... Why do you not think climate science is complicated?

~

[athinker]

Any science can be complicated. Especially science that attempts to achieve accuracy and precision.

 

But all science starts with basic principles and basic data. Your "alarmists" (I guess more rebranding from my warmists) fail, or more accurately, refuse to correlate the most basic quantifiable warming gas data with quantifiable human produced warming gas data in their conclusions.

 

The claims that "it is more complicated than that" are unconvincing because it is untrue. Science starts with basics. From there it requires work to understand. Seems that claims of its complexity is invoked to self absolve some people from the work.

 

You are trying to analyze the effect of spitting in a storm. Claiming that it is complicated to do ignores the fact that it is understood that it is an aburdity to do.

 

The bile and venom from alarmists is an obvious and childish tactic to evade the mature scientific questions and conclusions involved. Probably why it's so appealing and often used by the childish and ignorant. It is very common in message boards and chat rooms. It is also very recognizable.

 

I'm not a doctor but I can recognize a broken leg when I see one.

[Essay]

Are you saying climate science is "an absurdity to do?"

I've heard the idea before; that if CO2 is 0.04% of the atmosphere, then it couldn't have any significant effect ("spitting in a storm"). Is that your reasoning, or is it that our contribution of 0.0002% couldn't have any significant effect--or both?

 

Or is it, as you suggested, that climate science's "mature scientific questions and conclusions" are evaded by alarmists?

Wait, what!? That doesn't even make sense. I thought alarmists (warmists) were the one publicizing those questions and conclusions the loudest. Isn't it denialists who try to deny or "evade the mature scientific questions and conclusions?"

 

Unless you think the science is absurd; then it would seem that the alarmists publicizing it would be wrong, and the denialists would be right to publicize its absurdity--by denying its validity--I suppose. Is that your reasoning here?

 

I still think you are confusing science with the advocates of that science, when you define warmists or alarmists as:

Your "alarmists" (I guess more rebranding from my warmists) fail, or more accurately, refuse to correlate the most basic quantifiable warming gas data with quantifiable human produced warming gas data in their conclusions.

... you're talking about the scientists here, right? The ones who do the correlating....

Maybe you can clarify....

===

 

....but about complexity....

Maybe measurement accuracy and precision is a sort of complication(?) in science, but trying to describe the complexity in the linkage between cause and effect was more the sort of "complication" that I thought you claimed warmists were unjustly foisting as a tactic to "win" the argument about climate science's validity.

 

I think the claim of "complexity" is used to implore people to try understanding more within a broader context. It's about working harder, not avoiding work. It sounds as if you're saying that the scientists just claim "complexity" if they don't want to work, but that can't be right--can it?

 

Elsewhere I pointed out that: "it seems as if you expect temperatures to follow in sync with the CO2 fluctuations,"

suggesting that is was more complex than that. Is this...

The claims that "it is more complicated than that" are unconvincing because it is untrue.

...is this your response to that point specifically; do you think it is untrue?

Or are you just pointing that out as generally being a sort of strategy to unjustifiably win an argument?

~

[Essay]

Thanks Turtle, we are not here to debate GW.

Not sure about "grief" but will go along with a challenge to one's 'world view' although I am at a loss to see what "would view" is being threatened by scientists warning us about climate Change.

I can see Galileo Galilei may have had problems because it was seen that he was attacking the 'world view' and power of the church but this, , ,?

 

 

This has just happened in Oz.

It is totally unacceptable.

Death Threats Sent To Top Climate Scientists

http://www.australia...6a-958723ae5d64

...from the article: "Several of Australia's top climate change scientists at the Australian National University have been subjected to a campaign of death threats, forcing the university to tighten security."

Gosh, an organized "...campaign...."

===

 

Michael, I used the word "worldview" as a generic word to indicate one's values and ethics, and maybe also politics or social perspective in a vague sort of way; but upon reflection, worldview is particularly appropriate--imho--because:

 

Worldview, in the case of climate change, refers not only to personal values and ethics; but to the (U.S.) American's view of the world, which often doesn't extend beyond the borders of the northwestern hemisphere... or words to that effect. But when (or if) confronted with the realities and consequences manifesting among the other 95% of those in the world (and logic impels consideration of those other areas and manifestations--and how those might affect our standard-of-living, economy, and imagined future), then the worldview is changed by expanding to include areas outside of the usual parameters--both in space, process, and possible futures--a new worldview.

 

There is the particularly "American" worldview that describes itself with the phrase "American Exceptionalism." There may be arguable perspectives for this view, from being a comparably young society, to assuming the "short bus" definition for special-needs students, or to looking at the "genetic fractionation" by successive emigration through various lands and finally to the Americas; but this is just an anectdotal example of a myopic "worldview" that comes up when certain considerations for the rest of the world are suggested or advised.

 

And then there are the values, which support an ethic that is ten times more revanchist than 90% of the rest of humanity. And when (or if) one's valued political/social perspective (of raising up the rest of humanity to a comparable level of health, education, opportunity to prosper, and consequent resource usage) is juxtaposed with or confronted by the physical limitations of resource availability and physical consequences of resource usage, then there exist worldviews and values to be reconciled.

 

If a worldview that justifies a profligate lifestyle is seen to be unworthy and in need of replacement, then there is a loss of what made life worth living--so to speak. With such a loss, might grieving not ensue? The completion of the grieving process, "working through" and "acceptance/hope," are where people change behaviours, changing their "evil" ways--so to speak.

 

...And this doesn't even go into the guilt that might seem justified when you look at the responsibilities and "hidden" debts behind global change, but intentionality and morals complicate that discussion too much.

 

But as a recognized psychological process, the grieving paradigm seems to aptly apply to the public perception of paradigms for global-change comprehension, and for the associated mitigation policies and strategies.

 

~

[Michaelangelica]

A typical manifestation of the Psychology /sociology

A climate change wave of hate

http://www.smh.com.a...0609-1ftix.htmlJune 11, 2011

Illustration: Simon Letch.

 

After 25 years writing this column, I've had my first experience of an internet hate campaign. So far, more than 2400 people, nearly all American, have emailed me. More emails come every time I hit the send/receive button. About 5 per cent contain threats of violence. Even stranger, quite a few threaten me with sexual violence. They say, in various forms, that they want to rape me.

 

The only good news: quite a few don't seem to know the precise location of Sydney. Or Sidney, as some call it. ''You are so out of touch with America, I cannot believe you are published by an American paper,'' writes one emailer, having read the story on The Sydney Morning Herald website. Quite a few tell me I should be nervous if I ever try to leave Britain.

 

Here's how it started. Last week, in this spot, I wrote a piece about climate change. It was critical of both the left and the right and contained some comic hyperbole about both: that environmental zealots wanted us all to live in caves and that climate-change deniers should tattoo their beliefs on their bodies so they couldn't later deny their role in preventing action on climate change.

 

Advertisement: Story continues belowSo far, so hum-hum. On Saturday and Sunday, the piece never made it to the Herald's list of ''most read'' opinion pieces. I had nine emails - four of them saying they agreed, five against, but all expressed pleasantly. No one thought the piece was offensive or even that remarkable. The comic hyperbole was seen as, well, comic hyperbole.

 

Then - sometime Sunday night - a link to the piece was put on a right-wing website in the US, offering me up as another communist trying to ruin the world through the ''hoax'' of climate change. The piece started multiplying in cyberspace, mainly on websites dedicated to exposing the leftist conspiracy about climate change.

 

 

Read more: http://www.smh.com.a...l#ixzz1Oz9oiPP3

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/a-climate-change-wave-of-hate-20110609-1ftix.html

[Michaelangelica]

Essay a bit deep for me

The same thing is happening in Australia; so is it just the US world view" or do both share common assumptions about the world?

 

Should't yanks be grieving more after the absurdities and conflicts of the system were brought home after Sup-prime and the Global Economic meltdown?

 

Where does the environment and environmentalism stand in all this? Yanks invented it (Rachel Carson) yet want to try and ignore it and believe one can operate independently and above it?

 

 

Some more bizarre behaviour

 

AUSTRALIAN climate scientists have revealed details of the offensive emails they are routinely subjected to, amid concerns that the vitriolic campaign could deter the next generation of researchers.

 

The emails typically contain obscenities, insults and sexual slurs, with some including threats such as ''the quicker that c---s like you and your kind die, the better''.

 

The Australian Academy of Science condemned the attacks yesterday, saying researchers had a right to do their work free from abuse, acts of intimidation and threats of violence.

 

Advertisement: Story continues below''We call on leaders across the community to make the same defence of intellectual freedom,'' the academy's president, Professor Suzanne Cory, said.

 

A climate scientist at the University of Melbourne, David Karoly, said he had been receiving abusive emails for more than two years, but the barrage intensified earlier this year.

 

He referred a threatening one which said ''Die you lying bastard'' to police in January and they identified the person who sent it.

 

 

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/academics-fear-climate-change-hate-mail-might-deter-future-researchers-20110610-1fx40.html#ixzz1OzKr5kHQ

[Michaelangelica]

 

Lord Monckton’s Rap Sheet

 

http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/lord-moncktons-rap-sheet/

Some good, rational, scientific, argument?

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/ipad/garnaut-an-eco-fascist-says-monckton/story-fn6bqphm-1226080321385