This is something we’ve known about for quite some time, but it is nice to see it quantified. For those who don’t know about the “Weepy Bill McKibben Effect” or the founder of 350.org, here is a good primer.
But my tears started before anyone said a word. As the service started, dozens choristers from around the world carried three things down the aisle and to the altar: pieces of dead coral bleached by hot ocean temperatures; stones uncovered by retreating glaciers; and small, shriveled ears of corn from drought-stricken parts of Africa.
This study helps explain this emotionalism.
The Role of Emotion in Global Warming Policy Support and Opposition
Nicholas Smith1,* and Anthony Leiserowitz
Prior research has found that affect and affective imagery strongly influence public support for global warming. This article extends this literature by exploring the separate influence of discrete emotions. Utilizing a nationally representative survey in the United States, this study found that discrete emotions were stronger predictors of global warming policy support than cultural worldviews, negative affect, image associations, or sociodemographic variables. In particular, worry, interest, and hope were strongly associated with increased policy support. The results contribute to experiential theories of risk information processing and suggest that discrete emotions play a significant role in public support for climate change policy. Implications for climate change communication are also discussed.
In summary, this research found that discrete emotions—especially worry, interest, and hope—appear to have a large influence on American climate change policy preferences. The challenge for communication strategists is how best to cue these powerful motivations to promote public engagement with climate change solutions.
Translation: they need more weepy Bill types to get action they desire, because the climate rationalists of the world just aren’t buying the emotional hype.
The paper is open access, read it here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/risa.12140/pdf
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Emotionalism is a major factor in people’s assessment of risk. Which is why people are in general so bad at assessing risk. When I got onto a flight into Washington shortly after 9/11 nearly everyone called me ‘crazy’. There was no point explaining to people that this was now the safest form of transport imaginable under the circumstances or that terrorists would most likely hit a train or some other less expected target. So you just shrug and get on the flight.
” ……. CO2 as a pollutant…. ”
“…..Polar Bears dying as sea ice melts ……”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
And who has paid for all this stuff?
They missed two major responses that are increasingly coming to the fore
Boredom & Skepticism
Much “emotionalism” at Copenhagen was frustration at the limousine shortage. Really. They had a limo crisis.
I guess when you need “dozens of chorister from around the world” to carry a few trays you’re going to run into such problems.
Global warming is for sissies
Yes indeed. But emotions are not as valid as facts in this matter. Eventually the truth will out.
I have to say I am a little exasperated by Bill’s article. It sure explains why some people think Christians are gullible.
AAH! “what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive”, & I hope Bill McKibben et al have jolly goo memories as they’re all gonna get unstuck if the don’t!!
Weeping emotionalism? I know the feeling well: I weep as I fill my car with ever more expensive fuel – made more expensive by tax and duty, not by oil companies; I weep when I have to pay an ever more expensive gas and electric bill because my UK Gov is so in thrall to the wind and solar subsidy farmers; I weep that our children are being brain-washed in a program that could not be bettered if it were delivered in North Korea; and I weep when I read that my taxes support and keep in employment the likes of Phil Jones and the UK Met Office (to name but two).
Excuse me while I go and lie down in a darkened room for a bit. Sniff, sniff.
Wept? I shrieked with laughter then had a little lie down when I remembered some people take this (and him) seriously.
It’s another step in the evolution of environmentalism into an out and out religion. This sounds for all the world like an old fashioned evangelical church service. Do the attendees come forward to confess their sins — not eating organic, leaving the lights on after dark, giving too little money to the cause, raising children to waste more of the earth’s finite resources ???? If they make that last activity a sin, the church will have trouble maintaining its membership as the original set of worshipers age ….
/s
Fortunes are made by appealing to emotions. Emotions don’t need facts. Emotions don’t need measurements. Emotions don’t need repeatable experiments. Emotions just need stimuli. Like fear. AGW appeals to fear. And also to self hatred. And to the desire to control others. AGW does not need facts. Facts just get in the way… The gullibility of emotional people is an infinitely renewable resource. Drill, baby, drill….
…. suggest that discrete emotions play ….
Words are discrete.
Emotions are continuous and multidimensional and poorly described by words.
Sob…….!
Sniff…..!
The research may have found “discrete emotions” but one could hardly accuse McKibben of having ‘discreet’ emotions.
Crybaby drama queen, he is. These unbalanced types need to be laughed at, but…….
A very disturbing aspect of enviro-climate alarmism is how it’s affecting our children. Being indoctrinated by the constant fear mongering and told their that their parents (and thus themselves) are responsible for earth’s enviro-climate destruction is causing psychological/emotional issues for kids. There are studies pointing this out. It amounts to child abuse on a large scale. Alarmists never mention this side effect of their lying and the fact that Al Gore’s movies/books were part of school curriculum’s before sober folks convinced the schools they were forcing trash on the kids displays alarmists misanthropic side, uncaring they’re scaring kids-considering the results to be just collateral damage or important for molding future generations.
I feel this is appropriate…..
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Harry Passfield says:
August 6, 2014 at 2:06 am
Very well said Harry!
I personally find it extremely offensive that young people are being so manipulated using psychological techniques developed by the Nazis to further their own cause! I also believe that Jesus would have disapproved of such manipulation & control of the people by the Church!!!! Hang about, isn’t that what the HRCC used to do anyway?
So how do you fight emotional arguments?
1 Calmly speak sense until they blow themselves out.
2 Ennui, wait for the thrill of fear to die out.
3 Laughter.
Any other ideas?
I have worked as an expert witness in commercial cases for years. One of the first things taught me was that if “you do not have the facts on your side, baffle ’em with bulls**t.” In other words, no facts… use emotion. Emotional arguments are highly manipulative to their audience as we have seen for years.
One of the only pieces of parenting advice I give is about dealing with toddlers’ tantrums.
Never give in to the tantrums, as this just leads to more and more tantrums getting ever stronger, instead just laugh and laugh and point your finger at the tantrum thrower.
This method usually limits the number of tantrums per child to a maximum of three.
Weepy BS, like McKibben’s, is similar to a toddler’s tantrum and rightly deserves only ridicule and derision. Eventually, the McKibben, just like the toddler, will learn to behave.
Bottomline: it’s wrong to feel bad about bad things.
@mosomoso
“Much “emotionalism” at Copenhagen was frustration at the limousine shortage. Really. They had a limo crisis.”
There was a certain dearth of accessible ladies too. Which of course made the limo crises even worse; these things go together. Hot chicks and fast cars. Basic accessories for many a climate politician.
Emotion as a tool of policy making has been tried and tested. Particularly good at it was a certain Austrian who became Chancellor in 1933. We know where it leads.
I see a “chicken or the egg” situation. Liberals lead from the heart instead of the head, and they tend to support AGW more. So is the study merely affirming that the left is more prone to it because they are more emotional? Or is it the simple fact that the left has adopted the cause because of the overbearance of government entailed with every proposed solution?
emotional? me?
well yeah raging anger at the utter bullshit we who arent the malleable sheeple, have to put up with every damned day!
on a good day I laugh at em.
on a bad day I would like to kick ass so hard their noses bleed.