by Dennis Ambler
Those of who have long been in denial about the realities of global warming and the credibility of the IPCC, can now feel relieved, there may be hope for us yet. The diagnosis has been made; we have a psychological problem, which so far has failed to respond to the millions upon millions of dollars spent in “communicating” climate change to the masses.
However, the process of our redemption is already underway: A new publication called “Communicating climate change to mass public audiences” has just been presented to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, by the “Climate Change Communication Advisory Group”.
(Yes, the UK does have a Minister for Climate Change, however, in 1976, there was actually a Minister for Drought, who was one of the most effective politicians in history, because within three days of his appointment, it had started raining.)
What is the Climate Change Communication Advisory Group – This UK group is a project of the Public Interest Research Centre, an “independent” group who are partially financed by the UK government’s Economic and Social Research Council. CCCAG is university based, with five psychology departments involved, including the US and also has WWF-UK as a member.
Communicating climate change to mass public audiences Working Document, September 2010
“This short advisory paper collates a set of recommendations about how best to shape mass public communications aimed at increasing concern about climate change and motivating commensurate behavioural changes.
“Its focus is not upon motivating small private-sphere behavioural changes on a piece-meal basis. Rather, it marshals evidence about how best to motivate the ambitious and systemic behavioural change that is necessary – including, crucially, greater public engagement with the policy process (through, for example, lobbying decision-makers and elected representatives, or participating in demonstrations), as well as major lifestyle changes.”
The first claims to exploring the psychology of “climate change denial” came from the University of the West of England last year.
Conference – Facing Climate Change, Climate Change Denial
University of the West of England, 7 March 2009
“Man-made climate change poses an unprecedented threat to the global ecosystem and yet the response, from national policy makers right through to individual consumers, remains tragically inadequate. The Centre for Psycho-Social Studies at the University of the West of England is organising a major interdisciplinary event Facing Climate Change on this topic at UWE on 7 March 2009.
Facing Climate Change is the first national conference to specifically explore ‘climate change denial’.
This conference aims to strengthen our awareness of the challenge facing us and to enhance our capacity for effective decision-making and action. It will do this by bringing together a group of people – climate change activists, eco-psychologists, psychotherapists and social researchers – who are uniquely qualified to assess the human dimensions of this human-made problem.
Professor Paul Hoggett is helping to organise the conference, he said, “We will examine denial from a variety of different perspectives – as the product of addiction to consumption, as the outcome of diffusion of responsibility and the idea that someone else will sort it out and as the consequence of living in a perverse culture which encourages collusion, complacency, irresponsibility.”
Read the entire essay here (PDF)
Those of who have long been in denial about the realities of global warming and the credibility of the IPCC, can now feel relieved, there may be hope for us yet. The diagnosis has been made; we have a psychological problem, which so far has failed to respond to the millions upon millions of dollars spent in “communicating” climate change to the masses.
However, the process of our redemption is already underway: A new publication called “Communicating climate change to mass public audiences” has just been presented to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, by the “Climate Change Communication Advisory Group”.
(Yes, the UK does have a Minister for Climate Change, however, in 1976, there was actually a Minister for Drought, who was one of the most effective politicians in history, because within three days of his appointment, it had started raining.)
What is the Climate Change Communication Advisory Group – This UK group is a project of the Public Interest Research Centre, an “independent” group who are partially financed by the UK government’s Economic and Social Research Council. CCCAG is university based, with five psychology departments involved, including the US and also has WWF-UK as a member.
Communicating climate change to mass public audiences Working Document, September 2010
“This short advisory paper collates a set of recommendations about how best to shape mass public communications aimed at increasing concern about climate change and motivating commensurate behavioural changes.
“Its focus is not upon motivating small private-sphere behavioural changes on a piece-meal basis. Rather, it marshals evidence about how best to motivate the ambitious and systemic behavioural change that is necessary – including, crucially, greater public engagement with the policy process (through, for example, lobbying decision-makers and elected representatives, or participating in demonstrations), as well as major lifestyle changes.”
The first claims to exploring the psychology of “climate change denial” came from the University of the West of England last year.
If still insisting on global warming/climate change what explanation can we have for this inexplicable stubborness? Once again, what is their ultimate goal?
Some science fiction novels of the 1950’s described a future world which is owned and governed by a few corporations. But what for?, are its members inmortal beings?
We must wonder how and what do CANCER CELLS associate among them and conspire to destroy the body where they live.
A kind of Fidel Castro making a revolution to imprison himself in an island. That’s silly!
The Anti-Denier Seminar Agenda
DEALING WITH CLIMATE CHANGE DENIALISM
AGENDA
1.) Evidence -and why it isn’t necessary.
2.) Rubbishing and ignoring contrary evidence.
3.) How to get the most out of your adjusted temperature measurements.
4.) Taking advantage of natural disasters.
5.1) Taking advantage of hot weather.
5.2) Taking advantage of cold weather.
6.) Make your own hockey sticks: Hours of fun for all!
7.) Advanced use of buzz words such as: “consensus,” “robust,” “peer-reviewed,” “unprecedented,” and “denier”.
8.) Ad-hominem attacks -and how to make them really nasty.
8.1) Arguing your case: If the denier is a scientist, he is obviously in the pay of “Big-Oil”.
8.2) Arguing your case: If the denier is not a scientist, he isn’t qualified to give an opinion.
——————————-
The existence of such a seminar explains a lot, and I suspect it is but one of many. It explains why there is such a regular party line amongst AGW nuts all over the world, and it explains why the same insults and the same rubbish is trotted out again and again.
——————————–
Suggested Seminar Agenda:
1.) Stop calling so-called “man-made global warming” critics “deniers.”
2.) Freeing the data and the code, so that MMGW skeptics will have less to complain about.
3.) Learning how to be nice to people who disagree with you.
4.) Stop calling our critics “deniers.” This is really important, and so hard to do.
5.) Responding to FOI requests openly and honestly.
6.) Conflict of interest: cleaning up the way we do business.
7.) Stop calling our critics “deniers.” Yeah, it’s hard, but it makes us look really stupid.
8.) Psychological projection – the unwitting act of ascribing your own faults to others.
9.) Confirmation bias: “There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
10.) Circling the tribal wagons: a guest lecture by Judith Curry.
To underscore how stupid CO2 is making people, think about how the promoters are once again rebranding AGW as ‘global climate disruption’:
http://www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org/about/climate-disruption
and of course the University presidents are ready willing and able- if properly funded- to provide the vital leadership required to save the planet!
“Higher Education is necessary to successfully eliminate this threat – a challenge of massive proportion which will require transforming our economy, our institutions, our daily lives within a generation, and hence requires the active leadership of higher education to overcome. No other institution in society has the influence, the critical mass and the diversity of skills needed to be successful.”
And yes, I checked: this is not part of the ‘Daily Onion’.
vukcevic says:
September 16, 2010 at 12:34 pm
No joke: You could find a correlation of GMF with this insanity, as it is known from old that changing meteorological conditions stir up asylums.
Its this people!
Sceptics will inherit the Earth
Come on guys, read the report!
http://coinet.org.uk/sites/coinet.org.uk/files/Communicating_climate_change_to_mass_public_audiences_0.pdf
It actually urges the sorts of honesty we’ve been demanding. I know that the aim of the document is to convince the public that CAGW is real but it might have the reverse effect. When the enemy starts offering you what you want (inadvertantly) you have to accept it.
The conference – Facing Climate Change, Climate Change Denial, was back in March 2009. We’re now post Climategate and eyes have been rudely opened since then. I’m not saying that the AGW hard sell is over but the language has changed. Eg The UK is now stressing mitigation rather than CO2 reduction.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/britain-must-adapt-to-inevitable-climate-change-warns-minister-2077175.html
Kate says:
September 16, 2010 at 12:55 pm
The Anti-Denier Seminar Agenda
Hey!, you just forgot: “Massaging lessons & Practice taught by a Nobel Prize recipient”
“It will do this by bringing together a group of people – climate change activists, eco-psychologists, psychotherapists and social researchers”
Mind surgery w/ Mass Social lobotomy.
How to induce awareness of something that does not exist? Hypnosis and Medication.
Whether as a desired result or by unintended consequence, the severely weakened society(s) will be ripe for invasion by external forces that are more than willing & able to finish the job.
Enneagram says:
September 16, 2010 at 1:05 pm
“Sceptics will inherit the Earth”
We wouldn’t disagree.
Signed,
The meek.
I sent in my resignation from AAAS just now.
Today I received my invitation to the first Webinar of
your new website Member Central. This is titled Climate
Change and the Public: Overcoming Skepticism After
ClimateGate. I and I believe many other AAAS members
am personally affronted by your choosing to present
this panel, containing only apologists for the
“consensus” view on climate change. The revelations of
Climategate are a stain on science, and your attempt to
treat it by an intensified PR campaign is distasteful
and self-defeating. How much better it would have been
had you chosen to present a proper debate, with AAAS
scientists (e.g., Lindzen of MIT or Freeman Dyson) on
both sides of the issue.
For the first time, I am ashamed of my membership in
AAAS and request that you terminate my membership
immediately.
I agree with many who observed that this government-funded program exudes strong and unmistakable aroma of Dr. Joseph Goebbels. In combination with the growing open, aggressive, deeply ingrained antisemitism among European bureaucrats and leftists, this gives you a good picture of who are our puppet masters.
This “Goebbels phenomenon” is a direct consequence of the failure of a welfare state in general. Post-WWII British society is remarkably spineless and marasmic; an unprepared visitor, steeped in English culture and literature, full of respect for this country that invented and planted a good half of all things that we call “civilization,” once he finds himself in modern England, has a striking impression that most of the people there (not to mention the media) are decidedly insane.
I suspect it has something to do with Winston Churchill: with how they all treated him and his ideas after the war, how they all are aware that they forgot their petty follies and called in for duty some real people of common sense only when they were in mortal danger, and how they betrayed them immediately as soon as that mortal danger faded away.
Socialists, political prostitutes and promiscuous losers of all kinds and sorts are grasping environmentalist propaganda as their last straw, their last hope of imposing their guilt-ridden, destructive will on talented, hard-working benefactors of humanity they hate so passionately.
What do people hate most? Somebody or something they know they betrayed, sold out, perverted, let down. Welcome to the Brave New World!
This is new age quackery servicing the cult of Gaia …If Gaia is happy. we are happy; if we are to be happy, Gaia must also be happy! Good grief.
Ecopsychology, or eco-psychology as it is sometimes called, is situated at the intersection of a number of fields of enquiry, including environmental philosophy, psychology, and ecology, but is not limited by any disciplinary boundaries. At its core, ecopsychology suggests that there is a synergistic relation between planetary and personal well being; that the needs of the one are relevant to the other.
http://www.ecopsychology.org/
@ur momisugly Phillip Bratby says:
September 16, 2010 at 9:20 am …
Please see hereunder my request for the “compelling” evidence!
Ms. Clarke,
I refer to an article released by the BIS on 16 September 2010 00:01 on the News Distribution Service of the UK Government, the URL is (http://nds.coi.gov.uk/content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=415474&NewsAreaID=2&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20bis-news%20%28BIS%20News%29#)
In the article Sir John Beddington is quoted as follows, “The evidence is compelling that climate change is happening, that human activities are the major driver for this and that the future risks are substantial.”
Please would you forward to me the whereabouts of this compelling evidence so that I might review it for myself.
Sincerely,
Stephen Brown
The Climate Church wants you to repent brothers and sisters. We will forgive you your skepticism, come back into the fold! The end of the world is nigh and you need salvation through the one great truth, CAGW is the light that will guide you home! Amen brothers and sisters! Amen!
Who among us, from time to time, has not had the impulse to build a wall around some group or place, declare it a mental institution and send in the shrinks?
Only this time the shrinks are already inside the wall.
Who will shrink the shrinks?
Chas has given the link to the working document. Here is a link to the project (Climate Change Communication Advisory Group)
http://www.pirc.info/projects/cccag/
It gives a different link, and I haven’t checked if it’s the same report:
“CCCAG’s first report was presented to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in August 2010. Download the report http://pirc.info/downloads/communicating_climate_mass_audiences.pdf”
The contact is given as
Dr Adam Corner (Group contact)
School of Psychology 70 Park Place Cardiff University CF10 3AT
Tel: 02920 870837 Email: corneraj@cardiff.ac.uk
If you feel that your reason for being sceptical about global warming does not fall into the categories that they list, then maybe a phone call or email would be a good idea. (But please check first that the information I give is correct).
@TomRude – thank you! – interesting discussion.
TinyCO2 says:
September 16, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Come on guys, read the report!
http://coinet.org.uk/sites/coinet.org.uk/files/Communicating_climate_change_to_mass_public_audiences_0.pdf
It actually urges the sorts of honesty we’ve been demanding.
I read it. All they’re attempting to do is to re-package the “product”, and do more of a soft-sell approach. They are still selling the same old snake oil. There is a method to their madness. They are actually being more devious in their approach, not more honest. In the end, though, it won’t matter. They’ve already lost – they simply don’t know it yet.
Neil McEvoy says:
September 16, 2010 at 8:12 am (Edit)
tallbloke,
No, no, no, it was Labour’s Denis Howell, amiable old duffer and ex-football ref.
Neil, and Neil Jones and anyone else who spotted my gaffe; Mea Culpa. 🙂
I have had a quick look at the report (“working document”). Although mostly generic (about changing people, not specific to climate) it’s a pretty frightening document but maybe you should all read it too – know your enemy!
http://coinet.org.uk/sites/coinet.org.uk/files/Communicating_climate_change_to_mass_public_audiences_0.pdf
“Please address all correspondence to:
Dr Adam Corner
School of Psychology
70 Park Place
Cardiff University
CF10 3AT
Tel: 02920 870837
Email: corneraj@cardiff.ac.uk“
Skeptic Tank says:
September 16, 2010 at 10:05 am
Didn’t that used to be called propaganda?
Oh, it still is.
No, it is not. It is called “education” these days.
Psychologists have been at the forefront of Climate Change behaviour for a long time now – just jumping on the funding bandwagon I suspect. The BPS journal, The Psychologist dedicated a whole edition to the topic last year http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm?volumeID=22&editionID=172&ArticleID=1467 One always knew that psychologists were, on the whole, nuttier than those who live in the real world!
The report says “Climate change communications, including government
communication campaigns, should work to normalise public displays of
frustration with the slow pace of political change.”
Anthony has lead the way linking to public demonstrations of frustration at the limited pace of government action.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/26/is-climate-change-10-minutes-of-fame-over/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/24/350-day-fails-to-impress/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/17/anti-climactic-irony-copenhagen-finale-hit-with-snow-and-cold/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/31/ultimate-irony-snowstorm-squelches-screaming-climate-change-protest/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/06/damage-control-greenpeace-removes-threats/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/20/defenders-of-mann-stage-protest-rally-at-uva/
Chris B says
I’m corrected – partially. He was threatened to be brought to Rome in chains, excommunicated, and thrown into a dungeon unless he recanted -unless he went to Rome voluntarily. Naturally, under such threat, he recanted.. His father, as with many considered heretics, was tortured and burnt, so he knew it was no empty threat.
i doubt such punishments would happen to superior scientific minds today. The sanctions for such reprobates are more subtle