WUWT reader “Carl” Submits this story:
New research suggests people tend to hold negative views of political and social activists
Why don’t people behave in more environmentally friendly ways? New research presents one uncomfortable answer: They don’t want to be associated with environmentalists.
That’s the conclusion of troubling new research from Canada, which similarly finds support for feminist goals is hampered by a dislike of feminists.
Participants held strongly negative stereotypes about such activists, and those feelings reduced their willingness “to adopt the behaviors that these activities promoted,” reports a research team led by University of Toronto psychologist Nadia Bashir. This surprisingly cruel caricaturing, the researchers conclude, plays “a key role in creating resistance to social change.”
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/26/study_everyone_hates_environmentalists_and_feminists_partner/
[I dub it the “Gleick effect”. – Anthony]
UPDATE: Pamela Gray in comments provides the abstract:
As the old joke has it,
“What’s the the difference between a dead dog and a dead environmentalist?”
“Skid marks in front of the dog.”
Some of us environmentalists try to do the right thing. But I must admit there are a number of environmental extremists that give the science a bad name and many more politicos who hijack legitimate environmental concern for their own agenda. It creates a backlash that makes it harder to get support for honest efforts to build a more resilient environment.
Notice the attribution of cruelty: “This surprisingly cruel caricaturing, the researchers conclude, plays “a key role in creating resistance to social change.””
We all know how activists avoid “surprisingly cruel caricaturing.” Anti-fossil fuel activists are all sweetness and light. You greedy lying bastards. (:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/12/warmist-epic-greedy-lying-bastards-bombs-at-the-box-office/
I told someone the same thing at the Guardian comments just last week – before I was banned. I made it clear that the more they used ad hominems the worse it would be for the down-in-the-toilet Guardian circulation. I give the toilet paper less than 5 years.
The really serious situation is that the environment continues to suffer because of their fixation with the plant fertilizer co2. Some deny that fact but I have peer reviewed science and observations on my side.
Opportunists, with the aiding and abetting of the UN, from back in the late 1970s and 1980s led the environmental movement astray. Dr. James Hansen was the useful idiot followed in the ensuing decades by Al Gore. The rest is history – FAIL on co2.
jim Steele says:
September 29, 2013 at 3:42 pm
Some of us environmentalists try to do the right thing. But I must admit there are a number of environmental extremists that give the science a bad name and many more politicos who hijack legitimate environmental concern for their own agenda. …………………”
Being an Environmentalist is not the problem, activism is the problem. We have a guy here in Oztralia who started the Clean Up Australia campaign. It was a great idea. No activism – he just called for some volunteers to clean up a bit of their area an they did. Now it is an institution and 100’s of tons of garbage in the bushland gets picked up.
I thought I was the only one!
My first encounter with an environmentalist was not positive. I was hiking in the woods with a small group. I decided to pop a stick of gum in my mouth. Without giving it a thought I dropped the wadded up paper wrapper on the trail. The stranger behind me let out a yell and wanted to know what I thought I was doing. Clearly he was upset. I asked what the problem was. He said it was the gum wrapper as he pointed in disgust. Realizing he was serious I advised him not to worry, it was small and sure to compost quickly. Not good enough. He insisted it had to be picked up. No it doesn’t, I said, but you are welcome to do it if you want. With a great show of self righteousness he put it in his pocket. We proceeded in icy silence.
That was many decades ago. Since then I’ve become aware the world is filled with these people. I’m no psychiatrist but my guess is it has to do with over zealous potty training. As adults they are haunted by the feeling that they, and by projection all of humanity, are fouling the environment. Now they are in positions of power and influence. It’s sure to get worse before it gets better.
I’ve had a full life littering here and there in small ways on the sly. I sleep well knowing that all efforts to preserve and protect the current state of what the environmentalist think of as a fragile Earth Mother must in the end fail with the advent of the next glacial period or mountain-sized asteroid impact. The earth will endure long after we and our delusions are gone.
I wonder what his nest, his ‘crib’ is like, fouled.
dbstealey says: ” I have yet to see a scientific skeptic call for the murder, or firing, etc., of those who do not agree with them.”
But apparently you at What’s Up can joke about killing environmentalists:
Foster says: “What’s the the difference between a dead dog and a dead environmentalist?”
No, only a fool says groups they dont agree with are “hate” groups, especially if the rhetoric of individuals (killing, murder, etc) has not been substantiated with deeds.
Even Greenpeace, which works at being a little over the top, exactly how many people have they killed?
The Russians have now jailed all 30 eco-terrorists “protesting” too close to the arctic oil rig. Reading comments at several news sites shows little sympathy for them, least at the National Post. Hopefully they seize their ship, might make Greenpeace think about their next protest legalities.
Pippen,
How many hours did you spend in your mom’s basement, feverishly looking for an example of a skeptic threatening an alarmist?
And that was the best you could come up with??
My point stands:
I have yet to see a scientific skeptic call for the murder, or firing, etc., of those who do not agree with them. Thus, by your own criteria, you are part and parcel of a hate group. You are their enabler.
If it weren’t for your hatred, and your wish for the murder of those you don’t agree with, what would motivate you? It certainly wouldn’t be scientific facts, because you have none that support your belief system.
dbstealey says: “If it weren’t for your hatred, and your wish for the murder….”
Right, Bud. Perhaps you should use a mirror.
Pippen!
It is the CAGW religion that demands the death of millions, the starvation and illness and deprivation of billions of innocents; and the CAGW dogma that promoted those who most enthusiastically for even more deaths of today’s humans. All a skeptic would request is that those who so fervently believe in their CAGW dogma should be neutered first, so they don’t continue to breed. The threats of death, imprisonment and demotion and job firings are all from the CAGW promoters. /sarcasm
Pippen,
In the print version of Kevin Trenberth’s oddly named 2011 speech “COMMUNICATING CLIMATE SCIENCE AND THOUGHTS ON CLIMATEGATE” there was a cartoon from “The Politician” at the end that read ” Climate change is not the biggest threat to the planet” ….Climate change skeptics like you are!” The top climate scientists have fostered an ugly atmosphere of hate by calling anyone who disagrees a denier. Although I consistently argue we need more respectable debate, I do understand why any skeptic will vent. We are slammed as stupid deniers that are the biggest threat to the next generation’s children. Activist like Joe Romm, Bill McKibben and climate scientists instill fear and anger against deniers every day . It has the same tactic used by religions that use the word heretic to justify any and all attacks on non-believers whether they directly call for murder or not.
Baa Humbug says:
September 29, 2013 at 3:11 pm
“Lighten up sweetheart, some of us see a funny side.
Furthermore, keep your fantasies about my fantasies to yourself. I was actually thinking about not shaving legs. Perhaps you’re projecting?
Should I check with you prior to posting comments comrade?”
=============
Unless we are just playing games ?
You’ll know when we’re not playing anymore.
Pip,
Rather than launch into another diatribe, I direct you here. You are what I refer to there as one of the enlisted in the “army of self-deluded useful idiots [that] march forth with a smug self-righteousness that belies the ignorance of their advocacy.” You support an agenda of anti-human AGW zealots that will undeniably prolong poverty this entire century ensuring the needless deaths of tens of millions, so step off your high horse and take a nice long look into the mirror yourself. The AGW ivory tower of cards is crumbling. Deal with it. My advice to you is to drop your deadly advocacy rather than prolong your self-inflicted reign of ignorance.
galileonardo says: ” drop your deadly advocacy rather than prolong your self-inflicted reign of ignorance.”
Bud, looks like you need a mirror too.
Golly! Things are just like they were in high school. Regular people don’t like to be seen or associated with weird people. What is weird? If you have to ask, then you are weird. Think, Peter Gleick, or Michael Mann.
Weird science or math is Mannian, and weird personality is Gleickian. Any combination of which would be alarming.
Pippen Fool:
That is no answer. The fact is that you are consumed by hatred for those you don’t agree with. You are an enabler of the hate-filled alarmist cult, and you still can’t find an explicit statement from a skeptic calling for the murder, censoring, or incarceration of climate alarmists. But we have seen those things posted by the alarmist cult regularly.
So wallow in your hatred. It’s doing you no good at all, and it is destroying your soul. Hatred is a typical response of those who have no credible scientific facts to support their belief system. So hating is all you’ve got left.
Yeah its a bit like alternative medicine. If alternative medicine was obviously effective, then it would become conventional medicine. In rare cases it has a place (in that it may be very limited, or expensive, or ambiguous in its effects etc), but it often has very limited or no effectiveness, otherwise medical science would simply use it, and it wouldn’t be ‘alternative medicine’ anymore.
Same goes for environmental activists, anything that is obviously environmentally useful and unambiguous gets adopted by science and policy, what doesn’t gets left to activists, which usually means there is something defective or wrong with it, or that it actually does more harm than good.
So people learn not to trust activists in a society which is open, free and amenable to new ideas and change, what doesn’t get taken on board is often defective to begin with.
dbstealey says:”consumed by hatred … the hate-filled alarmist cult… wallow in your hatred…Hatred is a typical response… hating is all you’ve got left.”
Bud, I think you have a problem dealing with people you disagree with.
Remember: “Love is the answer and … you got to let it grow” (John Lennon, 1973)
Sippen Kool-Aid says:
September 29, 2013 at 6:45 pm
Bud, looks like you need a mirror too.
Hmm. That’s great. My hope for you, truly, is that you reevaluate your stubborn faith. It must be difficult to realize that what you have been propagating for only you know how long is not quite the noble cause you envisioned. Find solace in the fact that you are not alone. The flocks of the faithful AGW sheep are many and in many ways you are not to blame. You were led astray. You should try to lead rather than follow, ya know, a little independent thinking. You’ll sleep a lot better at night if you do because there’s no way around the unforgivable human cost of the policies you advocate. Then again, as others have noted, maybe hatred is your thing.
Good luck with that.
I note that there is still no repudiation by the hater Pippen of the calls for the murdering of scientific skeptics by the alarmist cult.
Therefore, Pippen is simply dissembling; emitting nugatory words.
Unless and until Pippen clearly and decisively repudiates the calls for violence against skeptics by his fellow alarmist cultists, he is simply being a hypocrite.
galileonardo says: “The flocks of the faithful … sheep are many and in many ways you are not to blame. You were led astray. You should try to lead rather than follow, ya know, a little independent thinking. ”
Given the blog that you and 97% of your friends post on, I really think you should take the mirror thing seriously. Really!!! Read your own quote!
http://oilprice.com/The-Environment/Global-Warming/UN-Blames-Cows-for-Global-Warming-Again.html
this is official insanity. the old whacko marxist hippies shine through with this lot.
regards